Acceptance, Knowledge and Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccines: A Cross-Sectional Study from Jigawa State, Nigeria

Vaccination is one of the strategies to contain a pandemic such as coronavirus disease 2019. Nigeria with the highest number of people in Africa has fully vaccinated only 3.69% of its citizens as of February 2022. This study aims to assess the level of Covid-19 vaccine acceptance. A cross-sectional survey was carried out by adopting a systematic random sampling sum of 220 primary school teachers in Dutse municipal (the capital of Jigawa state, Nigeria). Data was gathered between August 2021 and September 2021 through a self-administered questionnaire. A total of 220 primary school teachers participated in this survey, majority of them are married (85.9%) and are above the age of 36 (40.5%). Most of the respondents (47.3%) possessed national certificate of education (N.C.E) or national diploma (N.D). 85.5% of the general participants believed that; physical distancing, wearing of face mask and use of hand sanitizers can reduce the spread of the virus. Only 25.5% of the respondents are ready and willing to be vaccinated if it is available for them while the highest percentages of the participants (57.3) are not willing to take the vaccine and the remaining percentage are yet to decide. Similarly, 64.1% of the respondents believed that fear of side effect is one of the reasons why they are not willing to be vaccinated against the virus. Though, participants’ awareness about the pandemic is moderate but the low level of the vaccine acceptability is worrisome to the Jigawa state health authorities as well as Nigeria at large and should stir more efforts on the sensitization campaigns and strict measures.