Women trust vaccine more than men – study

Women are more likely to take the Covid-19 vaccine than men, a study has found.

According to the Ask Afrika Covid-19 Tracker study, South Africans are still torn over whether or not to take the vaccine, with men more likely to decline.

Just over half of the respondents (52%) said they intended to get vaccinated, while 19% said they did not plan to get vaccinated at all.

This is the first time that Ask Afrika has included the issue of vaccines in its Covid-19 Tracker study – a pro-bono study which the company has been conducting since the first week of April 2020 in order to better understand the socio-economic impact that the coronavirus, lockdown and gradual reopening of the economy has had on South Africans.

Just over a quarter of the respondents (28%) said they were unsure whether they would get vaccinated – and, of these, women appeared to be less certain than their male counterparts.

However, the study found that on the whole, men held a “significantly higher sense of distrust” toward the vaccine than women, said Andrea Rademeyer – Chief executive and founder of Ask Afrika. The vaccine’s safety remains a primary concern.

Despite the fact that men had higher levels of distrust around the safety of the vaccine, 20% of women who trust the safety of the vaccine were unsure of whether they would get vaccinated or not. Of the women who didn’t trust the safety of the vaccine, 60% said they would not get vaccinated.

“Among the male respondents who trust the safety of the vaccine, the speed of delivery to SA becomes more important while efficacy is more important for females who trust the safety of the vaccine,” added Rademeyer.

She said even though this study was conducted on a relatively small sample size – 403 respondents – it indicated how urgently SA needed a quantified behavioural model of virus and vaccines beliefs.