Vaccine hesitancy is most pronounced among white adults in South Africa, which is struggling to keep immunization centres busy just three months into the rollout of its inoculation program, a survey showed.<\/p>\n
Only 52% of white adults in the country are willing to get a Covid-19 shot, compared to three-quarters of their black counterparts, researchers from the Human Sciences Research Council\u00a0and the\u00a0University of Johannesburg\u00a0said in the highlights of a report due to be released on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cSide effects and concerns that the vaccine will be ineffective are the most common self-reported explanations\u201d for vaccine hesitancy, and those concerns were particularly pronounced among white adults, the researchers said.<\/p>\n
South Africa, which lagged behind many of its African and emerging-market peers in rolling out vaccines, is encountering mounting reluctance to take them.<\/p>\n
While the government and private sector, with which it is working, have stipulated daily targets of between 300,000 and 420,000 inoculations, they reached a peak of 271,838 last month and fell to as low as 141,000 last week.<\/p>\n
Reluctant youngsters<\/strong><\/p>\n So far, 9.56 million shots have been administered in the country, meaning 19% of adults have received at least one dose. About 7.8% of the population is White.<\/p>\n The survey of 7,631 people was conducted between 25 June and 12 July and was the fourth carried out by the institutions.<\/p>\n Overall, 72% of South Africans are willing to get vaccinated, up from 67% in the third round.<\/p>\n The proportion of black respondents who were willing to get a shot rose to 75%, from 69%, but among white adults it fell 4 percentage points, indicating that hesitancy is growing in that group.<\/p>\n While the proportion of people over 55 who were keen to get inoculated jumped by 11 percentage points between the third and fourth surveys to 85%, it slumped by eight percentage points to just 55% among those\u00a0aged<\/span>\u00a0between 18 and 24.<\/p>\n Addressing the scepticism among younger adults poses a challenge for the government, which plans to allow those under 35 to be vaccinated from 1 September.<\/p>\n Despite the greater hesitancy among White South Africans, they were more likely to have been vaccinated than their black peers, which may be due to a bigger proportion of them having access to better – and often private – healthcare facilities.<\/p>\n Religion had little impact on people\u2019s attitude toward vaccines, the survey showed.<\/p>\n The survey\u2019s findings differ from those announced last month by\u00a0Afrobarometer, which canvassed 1,600 people.<\/p>\n It found that 54% of South Africans were unlikely to get a vaccine and almost half thought that prayer was a better defense against the coronavirus than an inoculation.<\/p>\n
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