Hesitancy, ignorance or uncertainty? The need for effective communication strategies as Zimbabwe’s uptake of COVID-19 vaccine booster doses remains poor

Abstract

Zimbabwe started an ambitious COVID-19 vaccination programme in February 2021, aiming to vaccinate at least 60% of its eligible population by December 2021. The efforts to protect the population from the devastating effects of COVID-19 were remarkable, especially given that the country was not a part of the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) initiative, and the government had to seek alternative sources of vaccines. The trajectory of COVID-19 vaccination in the country followed a very slow initial uptake from February to early June 2021. A sharp rise in demand and uptake followed between June and August 2021, coinciding with a harsh Delta variant-driven epidemic. However, as the situation stabilised and the cases plummeted, the uptake of the vaccines fell again, and by the beginning of December 2021, reports from the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) of Zimbabwe show that the daily uptake had significantly gone down.