ACADEMIA Letters Assessing the Perception to the Proposed COVID-19 Vaccination in Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Abuja, Northern Nigeria Isaac Adesina Olufadewa, Slum and Rural Health Initiative Research Academy Miracle Adesina, Slum and Rural Health Initiative Research Academy Moyinoluwalogo Joshua Oladoye, Slum and Rural Health Initiative Research Academy Ruth Ifeoluwa Oladele, Slum and Rural Health Initiative Research Academy Toluwase Ayobola Ayorinde, Slum and Rural Health Initiative Research Academy Ayelawa Samuel, Slum and Rural Health Initiative Research Academy Abstract This study aimed at assessing the perception of IDPs in northern Nigeria on COVID-19 vaccination. The rationale of the study is to assist policy-makers in placing priority of vaccine distribution to the internally displaced persons during the present coronavirus pandemic. The findings of this study will be greatly influential in providing the evidence-based information needed in the African continent, at national or regional or continental levels, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Introduction Over 2 million people are displaced in Nigeria as a result of Boko Haram Terrorist that has been engaged in an armed conflict with the Federal Republic of Nigeria for close to two decades.1 Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Isaac Adesina Olufadewa, iiolufadewa@gmail.com Citation: Olufadewa, I.A., Adesina, M., Oladoye, M.J., Oladele, R.I., Ayorinde, T.A., Samuel, A. (2021). Assessing the Perception to the Proposed COVID-19 Vaccination in Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Abuja, Northern Nigeria. Academia Letters, Article 3440. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3440. 1 Consequently, many residents in the affected areas live below the poverty line and are at risk of facing dire health consequences due to the fact that they are disadvantaged and marginalized. While there have been some studies on the response to the novel coronavirus pandemic among people living with disabilities,2-6 individuals in urban settings and among the elderly population7-9, there has been no study on the perception on the proposed vaccination in humanitarian settings such as Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. After searching eight (8) databases (Google Scholar, PubMed, SCOPUS, HINARI, CINAHL, JURN, DOAJ, and Web of Science), no single original study on this area was found. Knowing about the perception on the proposed COVID-19 vaccine in these fragile regions will be informative for public health interventions and policies, as well as assist the government and major stakeholders in developing a coverage plan and distribution strategies to achieve herd immunity amongst this vulnerable population. The priority of this study is supported by a commentary by Dahab et al.10, where they identified the following reasons for an urgent response to the pandemic in humanitarian settings such as Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. Highlights of the major reasons why residents of IDP camps should be considered for urgent response during this pandemic is not exhaustive but exposed as: Increased likelihood of coronavirus transmission due to larger family size1, overcrowded IDP camps, poor water facilities, unhygienic practices and uncoordinated social gatherings.2 Greater chance for the progression of the Covid-19 infection to severe health conditions in these regions due to high prevalence of non-communicable co-morbidities e.g. HIV, TB, malnutrition, etc.3 Higher probability of death among these vulnerable classes if they need specialized healthcare services which is not readily available in the camps; due to lack of intensive care services as they often located outside the major cities. Our focus is to identify the perception of this population group to uptake of the vaccine and help policy-makers place priority of vaccine distribution to the internally displaced persons during the present coronavirus pandemic. The findings of this study will be greatly influential in providing the evidence-based information needed in the African continent, at national or regional or continental levels, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Also, the study will provide great insight into the health burden of vulnerable population in Nigeria; the insights will consequently be evidential eye-openers to international NGOs, foreign agencies, multinational companies, philanthropic bodies, and external government agencies who are willing to provide funding, support, and partnership to African communities with the sole aim to help promote health and wellbeing within the great African continent. Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Isaac Adesina Olufadewa, iiolufadewa@gmail.com Citation: Olufadewa, I.A., Adesina, M., Oladoye, M.J., Oladele, R.I., Ayorinde, T.A., Samuel, A. (2021). Assessing the Perception to the Proposed COVID-19 Vaccination in Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Abuja, Northern Nigeria. Academia Letters, Article 3440. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3440. 2 Methodology Study Design and Sampling Techniques A cross-sectional study was utilized to ensure the collection of comprehensive quantitative data on the topic of interest. Participants were chosen at random at two IDP camps within the FCT-Abuja, using a multistage sampling technique. A list of the four IDP camps in Abuja (Lugbe IDP Camp, Durumi IDP Camp, New Kuchingoro IDP Camp and Kuje IDP Camp) was made, and then a balloting system was employed to randomly select any two from the list. A systematic sampling technique was used to select at least a household representative per house within the visited camp. A minimum of 300 participants were recruited. Firstly, the total number of households within the selected camp was obtained prior visitation for the main study. The number of households in each of the camps and the number of participants (150 per camp) were used as determinants for the random start and kth interval necessary for adopting the systematic sampling technique. Persons within the nearest households were asked for participation. Inclusion Criteria 1. Must be permanent resident of the selected IDP camp 2. Must be at least 18 years 3. Must be able to communicate in a local dialect or English language 4. Must consent to participate on the study 5. Must be aware of the COVID-19 pandemic Data Collection Quantitative data was collected by the Principal Investigator and trained research assistants (RAs) who are graduates through the use of structured questionnaires adapted from similar gold standard questionnaires with very good psychometric properties, on the perception of proposed vaccination for infectious diseases. The questionnaires were made available electronically for the RAs, using any of Open Data Kit (ODK) and KoboCollect. Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Isaac Adesina Olufadewa, iiolufadewa@gmail.com Citation: Olufadewa, I.A., Adesina, M., Oladoye, M.J., Oladele, R.I., Ayorinde, T.A., Samuel, A. (2021). Assessing the Perception to the Proposed COVID-19 Vaccination in Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Abuja, Northern Nigeria. Academia Letters, Article 3440. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3440. 3 Analysis Plan Descriptive statistics of the mean, standard deviation, range, frequencies and percentages was used to summarize respondents’ data. The analysis was carried out using International Business Machine (IBM) Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 23.0 version software (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA) and Excel for the chart analysis. Results Questionnaire Distribution and Response Rate 300 questionnaires were distributed among respondents. However out of questionnaires distributed, a total of 222 were recovered (74% response rate) were retrieved and found useful. Sociodemographic Characteristics of Respondent According to table 1. The age range of the respondents were between 20-65 with a mean and standard deviation of 31.64 and 10.03 respectively. Majority of the respondents 129 (56.8%) were in the age group of 20-29 years. Findings from table also presented the gender of respondent where most of them were males 114 (51.4%). The table also shows the religions of the respondents of which 93 (41.9%) were Christians while 129 (58.1%) were Islam. Furthermore, the summary of table presented the location of IDP camps and marital status of respondents where most the them came from Durumi 113 (50.9) and about 179 (80.6%) are married. Most of respondents had their primary school 82 (36.9%) and secondary school education 65 (29.3%). Moreso, findings also showed the financial status of the respondents, majority of the respondents 129 (58.1%) don’t meet their basic needs. Perception of Proposed COVID-19 Vaccination Summary of the results of the descriptive statistics of frequency and percentage on respondents’ knowledge and willingness on COVID-19 vaccination. The result obtained showed that majority of the respondents (199; 89.4%) reported that they do not know about the vaccination, the remaining (23; 10.4%) reported that they do. One hundred and fifty (67.6%) reported that they do not know that the government has planned to offer the vaccine while they 69(28.8%) reported that they know. Furthermore, most of the respondent (206; 92.8%) reported that they won’t take the vaccine even if government offers it to them. Likewise, almost all the respondents (205; 92.3%) reported that they are not willing to pay for the vaccine Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Isaac Adesina Olufadewa, iiolufadewa@gmail.com Citation: Olufadewa, I.A., Adesina, M., Oladoye, M.J., Oladele, R.I., Ayorinde, T.A., Samuel, A. (2021). Assessing the Perception to the Proposed COVID-19 Vaccination in Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Abuja, Northern Nigeria. Academia Letters, Article 3440. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3440. 4 while only (17; 7.7%) responded they will. Discussion The present study reported poor knowledge and low acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination among Internal Displaced Persons (IDP) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The outcome of this present study revealed that a good proportion (92.8%) of the participants is not willing to get a COVID-19 vaccine. This finding is at variance with studies in the United States, Indonesia and China [11-13]. However, the low COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rate agrees with a recent study reported in Middle East, Russia, Africa and several European countries.14 This reflects the fear of vaccine safety as a result of the conspiracy theories surrounding the vaccine uptake. The willingness to pay for the vaccine is low (7.7%) in this IDP camp and inconsistent with the findings of previous studies in Indonesia and Romania.15,16 This could be attributed to the poor financial situation associated with people found in this type of setting. This underscores the need to make the vaccine accessible and affordable for all irrespective of individual social class. This is the first study to investigate the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination in humanitarian settings such as Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, providing evidence-based information which could aid in planning an effective vaccination process. This study is not without its limitation. The major limitation is the specific geographical representation of this study as this population group represents just a fraction of the most populous African country. Therefore, further research is needed with a broader study design to be able to obtain generalisable results. References 1. Mbiyozo AN. How Boko Haram specifically targets displaced people. 2. Boyle CA, Fox MH, Havercamp SM, Zubler J. The public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic for people with disabilities. Disability and Health Journal. 2020 Jul 1;13(3):100943. 3. Pineda VS, Corburn J. Disability, urban health equity, and the coronavirus pandemic: promoting cities for all. Journal of Urban Health. 2020 Jun;97(3):336-41. 4. Amatya B, Khan F. Rehabilitation Response in Pandemics. American journal of physical medicine & rehabilitation. 2020 May 22. 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Assessing the Perception to the Proposed COVID-19 Vaccination in Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Abuja, Northern Nigeria. Academia Letters, Article 3440. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3440. 6 16. Berghea F, Berghea CE, Abobului M, Vlad VM. Willingness to Pay for a for a Potential Vaccine Against SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 Among Adult Persons. Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Isaac Adesina Olufadewa, iiolufadewa@gmail.com Citation: Olufadewa, I.A., Adesina, M., Oladoye, M.J., Oladele, R.I., Ayorinde, T.A., Samuel, A. (2021). Assessing the Perception to the Proposed COVID-19 Vaccination in Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Abuja, Northern Nigeria. Academia Letters, Article 3440. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3440. 7