Africa COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: a Multi-country Cross-sectional Study

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020. Although African countries seem to have weathered the pandemic relatively well so far, with fewer than one confirmed case for every thousand people and around 50,000 death, the African continent has now officially over two million- COVID-19- case threshold.

In 2015, WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization defined vaccine hesitancy as a 'delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccination despite availability of vaccination services', which can vary in form and intensity based on when and where it occurs and what vaccine is involved. Several prophylactic vaccines against COVID-19 are currently in development. As the world is beginning the roll-out the first approved vaccines, little is known about people's potential acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine in most of the African countries. A recent study published in Nature provides results on the acceptability of vaccines in 19 of the 35 hardest hit countries worldwide. South Africa was the only African country included in the survey. An additional survey conducted in 15 African countries between August and December 2020, reveals that the majority of Africans would take a safe and effective vaccine. Nevertheless, vaccine hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines evolves over-time. In this view, it is crucial to investigate in depth barriers and facilitators influencing vaccine hesitancy/acceptability within African population.

During the last decade several initiatives have emerged that aim at improving vaccine coverage and acceptability across the African continent. A noteworthy example is the Francophone African Civil Society Organizations' Platform for Strengthening Health Systems and Immunization, which has been since 2015 supported by GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation). OAFRESS encourages activities among francophone African members, with the primary objective of reinforcing capacities and coordinating strategies among these countries. The last West African Ebola epidemic demonstrated the importance of engaging communities in order to promote vaccine acceptability. The three most hit countries, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, worked together and invested in research and campaigns to identify and address barriers and facilitators of vaccine acceptance, which informed both clinical vaccine studies and roll-out strategies.

In order to promote the equitable and prompt roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine worldwide, as the COVAX initiative strives for, factors influencing vaccine hesitancy in low and middle-income countries need to be investigated more thoroughly. The request for a first roll-out of the vaccines in eligible countries was to be submitted by December 7, 2020. Many of the eligible African countries have placed the order to receive the vaccines, which are already being deployed within these first months of 2021. Country and population preparedness are crucial to making the roll-out a success.

2. Study Objectives 2.1 Overall objective To investigate COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among five African countries to inform effective context-specific public health strategies for roll-out of vaccination.