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COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in South Africa: Lessons for Future Pandemics

Vaccine hesitancy, long considered a global health threat, poses a major barrier to effective roll-out of COVID-19 vaccination. With less than half (45%) of adult South Africans currently fully vaccinated, we identified factors affecting non-uptake of vaccination and vaccine hesitancy in order to id...

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Autores principales: Engelbrecht, Michelle, Heunis, Christo, Kigozi, Gladys
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9180246/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35682278
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19116694
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author Engelbrecht, Michelle
Heunis, Christo
Kigozi, Gladys
author_facet Engelbrecht, Michelle
Heunis, Christo
Kigozi, Gladys
author_sort Engelbrecht, Michelle
collection PubMed
description Vaccine hesitancy, long considered a global health threat, poses a major barrier to effective roll-out of COVID-19 vaccination. With less than half (45%) of adult South Africans currently fully vaccinated, we identified factors affecting non-uptake of vaccination and vaccine hesitancy in order to identify key groups to be targeted when embarking upon COVID-19 vaccine promotion campaigns. A cross-sectional, anonymous online survey was undertaken among the South African adult population in September 2021. Our research identified race, interactive–critical vaccine literacy, trust in the government’s ability to roll out the COVID-19 vaccination programme, flu vaccination status and risk perception for COVID-19 infection as key factors influencing the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination. Respondents who did not trust in the government’s ability to roll out vaccination were almost 13 times more likely to be vaccine-hesitant compared to those respondents who did trust the government. Reliable, easy-to-understand information regarding the safety of COVID-19 vaccines is needed, but it is also important that vaccination promotion and communication strategies include broader trust-building measures to enhance South Africans’ trust in the government’s ability to roll out vaccination effectively and safely. This may also be the case in other countries where distrust in governments’ ability prevails.
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spelling pubmed-91802462022-06-10 COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in South Africa: Lessons for Future Pandemics Engelbrecht, Michelle Heunis, Christo Kigozi, Gladys Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Vaccine hesitancy, long considered a global health threat, poses a major barrier to effective roll-out of COVID-19 vaccination. With less than half (45%) of adult South Africans currently fully vaccinated, we identified factors affecting non-uptake of vaccination and vaccine hesitancy in order to identify key groups to be targeted when embarking upon COVID-19 vaccine promotion campaigns. A cross-sectional, anonymous online survey was undertaken among the South African adult population in September 2021. Our research identified race, interactive–critical vaccine literacy, trust in the government’s ability to roll out the COVID-19 vaccination programme, flu vaccination status and risk perception for COVID-19 infection as key factors influencing the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination. Respondents who did not trust in the government’s ability to roll out vaccination were almost 13 times more likely to be vaccine-hesitant compared to those respondents who did trust the government. Reliable, easy-to-understand information regarding the safety of COVID-19 vaccines is needed, but it is also important that vaccination promotion and communication strategies include broader trust-building measures to enhance South Africans’ trust in the government’s ability to roll out vaccination effectively and safely. This may also be the case in other countries where distrust in governments’ ability prevails. MDPI 2022-05-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9180246/ /pubmed/35682278 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19116694 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Engelbrecht, Michelle
Heunis, Christo
Kigozi, Gladys
COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in South Africa: Lessons for Future Pandemics
title COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in South Africa: Lessons for Future Pandemics
title_full COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in South Africa: Lessons for Future Pandemics
title_fullStr COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in South Africa: Lessons for Future Pandemics
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in South Africa: Lessons for Future Pandemics
title_short COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in South Africa: Lessons for Future Pandemics
title_sort covid-19 vaccine hesitancy in south africa: lessons for future pandemics
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9180246/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35682278
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19116694
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