Page 83 - IJPS-10-1

International Journal of

Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Perception and acceptance readiness for

COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria

Oladipupo Olaleye *, and Samson Akande 2
1,2
1 John Hopkins Centre for Communication Programs, Ibadan, Nigeria
2 Department of Health Promotion and Education, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan,
Nigeria
(This article belongs to Special Issue: Population and Reproductive Health Dynamics under
Covid-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa)

Abstract

The development of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine is widely regarded
as a tremendous scientific progress. However, the level of vaccine acceptance has
been a concern in Nigeria. Thus, we conducted a study to analyze the perception and
acceptance readiness for COVID-19 vaccine among Nigerians, yielding analysis data
that could inform policy for raising the COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rate. A total
of 302 respondents were surveyed in this cross-sectional study to explore their
perception and acceptance readiness for COVID-19 vaccine. A total score of ≤14 was
considered having negative perception of COVID-19 vaccine whereas a score >14 was
regarded as having positive perception. Most respondents (71.2%) had a negative
perception of the vaccine. The majority of these respondents (96.7%) had not been
vaccinated, out of which 46.6% claimed to be willing to take the vaccines if they were
*Corresponding author:
Oladipupo Olaleye provided free of charge, while 15.1% expressed their willingness to be vaccinated
(oladipsam@gmail.com) even if payment was required. There was no variable associated with readiness or
non-readiness to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Major reasons for non-readiness include
Citation: Olaleye, O., Akande, S.
(2024). Perception and acceptance doubt about the vaccine authenticity/safety/effectiveness (59.2%), low level of trust
readiness for COVID-19 vaccine in the government (12.6%), and fear of side effects (10.7%). In conclusion, to boost
in Nigeria. International Journal of the COVID-19 vaccine uptake in Nigeria, both governmental and non-governmental
Population Studies, 10(1):77-85.
https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.364 bodies should participate in continuous public engagement to assure the public that
the vaccine is safe and effective.
Received: September 19, 2022
Accepted: December 1, 2023
Keywords: COVID-19 vaccine; Acceptance readiness; Hesitancy
Published Online: December 26,
2023
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s).
This is an Open-Access article 1. Introduction
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution Vaccination is one of the most successful approaches to public health intervention
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, and a cornerstone for the prevention of communicable infectious diseases (Puri et al.,
provided the original work is 2020). Before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, more time, usually
properly cited. in years, is required to develop a vaccine for an infectious disease (Adigwe, 2021). The
Publisher’s Note: AccScience swift conception and development of COVID-19 vaccines represent a huge scientific
Publishing remains neutral with breakthrough in modern human history (Loembé & Nkengasong, 2021), marking
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional a giant leap in our effort to combat the virus which had infected over 181 million
affiliations. persons globally and caused over 4 million deaths between December 2019 and

Volume 10 Issue 1 (2024) 77 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.364