New study finds most South African adults willing to take Covid-19 vaccine

Research was conducted by Centre for Social Change (CSC) and University of Johannesburg (UJ) in partnership with the Developmental, Capable and Ethical State (DCES) research division of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).

The research comes days before the first batch of the vaccine is expected to arrive in the country.

Some of the findings show that:

· 67% of adults would definitely or probably take a vaccine if it was available.

· 18% of adults would definitely or probably not take a vaccine.

· 15% of adults did not know

The university's Professor Kate Alexander says the 33% who were unsure or did not want to take the vaccine said it was because of lack of information regarding the vaccine.

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Alexander says the country needs a vaccine literacy campaign to sway the remaining few.

"People want more information. They are concerned that there might be adverse side-effects.

"The kind of things that have received a lot of media attention - the conspiracy theories - are really rather marginal," Alexander says.

He said to reach herd immunity more than 60% of the population would need to take to the vaccine.

Therefore, Alexander says, it is imperative that the concerns of those who are uncertain are allayed.