Perception of the Congolese population on Covid-19 vaccination: cross-sectional survey of online

Abstract

COVID-19 vaccines will become available in Democratic Republic of Congo soon. Understanding communities’ responses to the forthcoming COVID-19 vaccines is important. We was conducted an analytical cross-sectional study online in 26 provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo during the period from January to March 2021. A total of 11971 responses were included; mean age of respondents was 35.1±10.4 years; 79.4% were males; 90.5% had university school education and 55.4% has a high socioeconomic level. A frequency of poor perception of covid-19 vaccination is 75.6%. In a multivariable regression model, age between 46-55 years, 36-45 years and 26-35 years (aOR=1.54, CI: 1.27-1.87, aOR=1.70 CI: 1.35-2.13 and aOR =3.40, CI: 2.78–4.17, respectively), None profession and liberal profession (aOR=1.75, CI: 1.49-3.34 and aOR=2.52, CI: 1.89-3.34, respectively), moderate and low socioeconomic level (aOR=3.06, CI: 2.64-3.56 and aOR=5.89, CI: 4.11- 8.38, respectively), Low and very low risk of infection with COVID-19 (aOR=1.67, CI: 1.07-1.97 and OR=2.66, CI: 1.36-3.04, respectively; Moderate, low and very low risk of getting sick if you are infected (aOR=1.49, CI: 2.08-2.98, aOR=2.97 CI: 2.45-3.59 and aOR=3.89, CI: 3.11-4.82, respectively) were associated with a poor perception COVID-19 vaccination. In conclusion, the frequency of misperception in the Congolese population is high. It is associated with the poor perception of the disease and the socio-demographic characteristics of individuals.

Factors Influencing the Intention and Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccines on the African Continent: A Scoping Review

“…Two of the 18 studies reported a positive perception [34,46] of the vaccine, while five of the 18 studies reported an overall negative perception [26,30,48,53,56] of the vaccine. According to the findings, two studies were diametrically opposed regarding attitudes and perceptions toward the vaccine.…”

“…Thirty-three studies (n = 33) highlighted the barriers associated with COVID-19 vaccine uptake. Of those twenty-nine studies (n = 29) cited fears over potential side effects and the newly developed vaccine being unsafe for the African population [27,29,30,[32][33][34][35][36][37][40][41][42][43][44][45]48,50,[54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64].…”

“…Eleven studies (n = 11) reported concerns regarding the vaccine's ineffectiveness in protecting against COVID- 19 [29,32,36,40-42,55,56,60,63,64], resulting in a general apprehension about being vaccinated. Perceptions based on conspiracies about the COVID-19 vaccine were also cited in eight studies (n = 8) (e.g., the vaccine was designed to kill people in Africa, the vaccine was designed to sterilize the African population, and the vaccine causes COVID-19) [26,28,29,35,39,41,42,56]. Five studies each (n = 5) attributed barriers to a perceived lack of information to make informed decisions about its uptake [29,32,50,54,64] and scientific uncertainty [33,49,55,58,62] (e.g., mistrust in science or the vaccine, the vaccine has not gone through enough clinical trials, or the quality of COVID-19 vaccines sent from Western countries was not effective against COVID-19 in Africa).…”

The Struggle to Vaccinate: Unveiling the Reality of the first year of Covid-19 Vaccination in the Democratic Republic of Congo

“…The implementation of Covid-19 vaccination program in its first year has not been well described in previous studies. Research conducted where either limited in scope like addressing one province [19,20] or one component of the vaccination for instance, the communication, the demand generation [21][22][23][24]. The only study that gave an overview of implementation was a commentary but was limited as it only focused on ChAdOx1 [25].…”