Introduction: WHO declared COVID-19 a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January and a pandemic on 11 March 2020.Since then, the virus has spread all over the world. As of 3july 2022, over 546million confirmed cases and 6.3 million deaths have been reported globally, While Tanzania since 1stMarch 2022 to 7th july2022 there have been 35,768 confirmed cases of COVID 19 with 841 deaths reported to WHO. COVID 19 vaccines were approved in late 2020 and early 2021 for public use across the world. Several studies have now highlighted COVID 19 vaccination hesitancy in public. Around 85% of Tanzanian population has not received vaccination against COVID-19 However little is known about factors affecting vaccination uptake against COVID 19 in TANZANIA.
Aim: this research aims to investigate the factors affecting vaccination uptake against COVID -19 among motorcyclist.
Methodology: this is cross-sectional community-based study which will be done in duration of seven months. At Mwanza region among motorcyclist, Data will be collected using the questionnaires which will be passed through the motorcyclist in Mwanza region. - Information gathered using the questionnaires will be transferred to the Microsoft excel 2016 for data cleaning. Data will then be transferred to Statistical Package for Social Science software (SPSS) version 20 for analysis. Data analyzed were presented as follows: bar graphs, pie charts and tables.
Budget: This study is estimated to cost TZS 359,800/= which would be covered by the researcher.
Results: 384 motorcyclists were enrolled in this study. The study has shown that the level of knowledge regarding COVID-19 vaccination uptake among motorcyclist in Mwanza, Tanzania is poor, with poor attitude and bad practice as only (7.9%) out of 384 motorcyclist are vaccinated. The findings revealed significant difference in level of knowledge, attitude and practice by age, level of knowledge, and other factors as influenced by community such as perceived COVID-19 vaccine, perceived COVID-19 infection, Covid-19 vaccine effects, concerning about self-protection, concern about family protection, don’t think the vaccine is safe and don’t trust the government about information which is provided pertaining COVID-19 vaccine were factors that significantly influencing vaccine uptake. These results are significantly lower as compared to studies which has been done in other parts of Tanzania and World as whole.
Conclusion: There is low level of knowledge pertaining COVID-19 vaccine uptake in Mwanza among motorcyclist. Setting-specific interventions and innovations are critical to improving vaccine uptake, given the observed differences between different factors. However these results could not been generalized to the whole population as the study uses small number of sample size.