COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance in Mukalla City, Yemen

Background: In Yemen the epidemiology of COVID19 is uncertain. Yemen received the first batch of AstraZeneca vaccine in April 2021 and the vaccine campaign starts officially on 20 April 2021 with limited utilization. Media play a negative role about AstraZeneca vaccine safety and efficacy.Objectives: to investigate the acceptance of People and health workers in Mukalla city in Hadharmout (at eastern Yemen) toward the COVID-19 vaccine.Methodology: This is a cross-sectional study to collect data from a convenience sample of health workers and other people during the first week of April 2021. Results: A total of 321 persons agree to participate in the study. Only 9% of the participants and 22% of health workers have knowledge about the COVID19 vaccine, only 15% of people and 26% of health workers agree to get the vaccine while 241 participants (75%) hesitated to get the vaccine. The most reasons for vaccine hesitancy were: the vaccine were arrived to Yemen of bad quality (69%), while 48% of hesitated participants said that the vaccine is unsafe, other reasons for unacceptance the vaccine are: regional believes (38%), other countries stop the vaccine (37%) while 16% of refused participants said that the reason is that the virus is subject to mutation so no need to vaccinate. Conclusions: Lack of knowledge about COVID-19 vaccine and high level of vaccine hesitancy were reported, the most frequent reasons for not accepted the vaccine are: bad quality of the vaccine and doubts about vaccine safety.