Article Sidebar
Published:
Feb 20, 2023Article Details
The author(s) retain copyright on work published by AOSIS unless specified otherwise.
Licensing and publishing rights
Author(s) of work published by AOSIS are required to grant AOSIS the unlimited rights to publish the definitive work in any format, language and medium, for any lawful purpose. AOSIS requires journal authors to publish their work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Read more here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the published article(s), provided attribution is given to the applicable journal with details of the original publication, as set out in the official citation of the article published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the article on the authors’ or their institution’s websites or in institutional repositories.
Previously published work may have been published under a different licence. We advise the community that if they would like to reuse the work to consult the applicable licence at article level.
Main Article Content
COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and associated factors among people living with HIV in the Middle East and North Africa region
Abstract
Background: Identifying coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine acceptance and associated factors among people living with HIV (PLHIV) in the Middle East and North Africa region is important to meet the need for broad-scale vaccination against COVID-19.
Objectives: To investigate the COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rate and factors among PLHIV in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Method: An online cross-sectional survey was conducted among PLHIV currently living in Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia between March 2021 and August 2021.
Results: Of the 540 respondents, 19.3% reported already being vaccinated against COVID-19 (n = 104), 32.0% responded ‘definitely yes’ (n = 173), and 13.3% responded ‘probably yes’ (n = 72) for intention to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, with an overall COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rate of 64.6% among PLHIV in the region. The most significant predictors of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance included feeling less worried about COVID-19 transmission post- vaccination (221.0% higher odds), and believing the disease is vaccine-preventable (160.0% higher odds). Reported barriers to COVID-19 vaccine acceptance include concerns about vaccine effectiveness and belief that HIV medications protect against COVID-19 transmission, living in a rural area and reporting less-frequent engagement with HIV care. Nine out of 10 participants reported that the chances of them getting COVID-19 vaccine would increase if given adequate information and if their doctor recommended it.
Conclusion: Findings of the study can help researchers, health officials, and other health system actors understand the predictors and barriers to COVID-19 vaccine acceptance reported by PLHIV. This understanding could inform the future planning of interventions tailored to PLHIV.
