Examining Vaccine Hesitancy in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Survey of the Knowledge and Attitudes among Adults to Receive COVID-19 Vaccines in Ghana.
Vaccines (Basel)
; 9(8)2021 Jul 22.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1325808
ABSTRACT
The impact of COVID-19 vaccination programmes on disease transmission, morbidity and mortality relies heavily on the population's willingness to accept the vaccine. We explore Ghanaian adult citizens' vaccine hesitancy attitudes and identify the likelihood of participation or non-participation in the government's effort to get citizens vaccinated. A fully anonymised cross-sectional online survey of 2345 adult Ghanaians was conducted from 23 to 28 February 2021. Differences in intentions regarding COVID-19 vaccination were explored using Pearson Chi-square tests. Additionally, multinomial logistic regression was used to analyse the factors associated with willingness to receive vaccines. Responses were weighted using the iterative proportional fitting technique to generate a representative sample. About half (51%) of mostly urban adult Ghanaians over 15 years are likely to take the COVID-19 vaccine if made generally available. Almost a fifth (21%) of the respondents were unlikely to take the vaccine, while another 28% were undecided. Additionally, we find differences in vaccine hesitancy among some socio-demographic characteristics such as age, gender, and primary sources of information. Attaining the proverbial 63% to 70% herd immunity threshold in Ghana is only possible if the preventive vaccination programmes are combined with an enhanced and coordinated public education campaign. Such a campaign should focus on promoting the individual and population-level benefits of vaccination and pre-emptive efforts towards addressing misinformation about vaccines.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Vaccines
Language:
English
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Vaccines9080814
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