Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccines in Sub-Saharan Africa : Evidence from Six National Phone Surveys
Recent debates surrounding the lagging COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in low-income countries center around vaccine supply and financing. Yet, relatively little is known about attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines in these countries and in Africa in p...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/916971627475781284/Acceptance-of-COVID-19-Vaccines-in-Sub-Saharan-Africa-Evidence-from-Six-National-Phone-Surveys http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36039 |
| Summary: | Recent debates surrounding the lagging
COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in low-income countries
center around vaccine supply and financing. Yet, relatively
little is known about attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines in
these countries and in Africa in particular. This paper
provides cross-country comparable estimates of the
willingness to accept a COVID-19 vaccine in six Sub-Saharan
African countries. It uses data from six national
high-frequency phone surveys in countries representing 38
percent of the Sub-Saharan African population (Burkina Faso,
Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, and Uganda). Samples were
drawn from large, nationally representative sampling frames
providing a rich set of demographic and socioeconomic
characteristics which are used to disaggregate the analysis.
The findings show acceptance rates to be generally high,
with at least four in five people willing to be vaccinated
in all but one country. Vaccine acceptance ranges from
nearly universal in Ethiopia (97.9 percent) to below what
would likely be required for herd immunity in Mali (64.5
percent). Safety concerns about the vaccine in general and
its side effects emerge as the primary reservations toward a
COVID-19 vaccine across countries. These findings suggest
that limited supply, not inadequate demand, likely presents
the key bottleneck to reaching high COVID-19 vaccine
coverage in Sub-Saharan Africa. |
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