Research Desk Consulting Limited, Kwabenya-Accra, Ghana.
Organisation of African Academic Doctors, OAAD, Nairobi, Kenya.
PLoS One. 2022 Jun 1;17(6):e0268230. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0268230. eCollection 2022.
The willingness of Africa's population to patronise the COVID-19 vaccines is critical to the efficiency of national immunisation programmes. This study surveys the views of adult African inhabitants toward vaccination and the possibility of participating or not participating in governments' efforts to get citizens vaccinated.
A cross-sectional online survey of adult Africans was undertaken from December 2020 to March 2021. Responses were anonymised. The Pearson Chi-square test was performed to determine whether or not there were any variations in knowledge, awareness, perception and acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccines among the participants. Binomial logistic regression was used to evaluate the factors associated with willingness to accept the COVID-19 vaccines and participate in immunisation programmes.
The results indicate that COVID-19 vaccines are more likely to be used by adult Africans over the age of 18 who are largely technologically savvy (55 percent) if the vaccine is made broadly available. A total of 33 percent of those who responded said they were unlikely to receive the vaccine, with another 15 percent stating they were undecided. Aside from that, we found that vaccine hesitancy was closely associated with socio-demographic characteristics such as age, gender, education and source of information. We also found that there were widespread conspiracies and myths about the COVID-19 vaccines.
More than one-third of African adults who participated in the survey indicated they would not receive the COVID-19 vaccine, with majority of them expressing skepticisms about the vaccine's efficacy. It is possible that many of the people who would not be vaccinated would have an impact on the implementation of a COVID-19 immunisation programme that is meant for all of society. Majority of the respondents were unwilling to pay for the COVID-19 vaccines when made available. An awareness campaign should be focused on promoting the benefits of vaccination at the individual and population levels, as well as on taking preemptive actions to debunk misconceptions about the vaccines before they become further widespread.
非洲人口对接种 COVID-19 疫苗的意愿对于国家免疫计划的效率至关重要。本研究调查了成年非洲居民对疫苗接种的看法，以及他们是否有可能参与或不参与政府努力让公民接种疫苗。
2020 年 12 月至 2021 年 3 月期间，对成年非洲人进行了横断面在线调查。回应是匿名的。采用 Pearson 卡方检验来确定参与者在对 COVID-19 疫苗的知识、意识、看法和接受程度方面是否存在差异。二项逻辑回归用于评估与接受 COVID-19 疫苗和参与免疫计划意愿相关的因素。
研究结果表明，如果 COVID-19 疫苗广泛供应，年龄在 18 岁以上的成年非洲人更有可能使用疫苗，而这些人在很大程度上精通技术（55%）。共有 33%的受访者表示他们不太可能接种疫苗，另有 15%表示他们尚未决定。除此之外，我们发现疫苗犹豫与年龄、性别、教育和信息来源等社会人口特征密切相关。我们还发现，针对 COVID-19 疫苗存在广泛的阴谋论和神话。
参与调查的非洲成年人中，超过三分之一的人表示他们不会接种 COVID-19 疫苗，其中大多数人对疫苗的疗效表示怀疑。可能会有许多不愿接种疫苗的人会对旨在惠及全社会的 COVID-19 免疫计划的实施产生影响。当 COVID-19 疫苗可供使用时，大多数受访者不愿意为此付费。宣传活动应侧重于在个人和人群层面宣传接种疫苗的好处，并采取预防措施，在误解进一步传播之前，揭穿有关疫苗的误解。
