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A Survey on the Potential Acceptance, Knowledge and Attitude Regarding the COVID-19 Vaccine: A Cross Sectional Study in Assam, North-East, India.
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  • lalit Goswami,
  • sarowar Alom,
  • farzin sultana,
  • barnali sarma,
  • manas das,
  • jogen kalita
lalit Goswami
Gauhati University
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sarowar Alom
Gauhati University
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farzin sultana
Gauhati University
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barnali sarma
Gauhati University
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manas das
Gauhati University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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jogen kalita
Gauhati University
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Abstract

Aim: Along with Assam, India’s mass vaccination drive is witnessing a low turnout situation. This study aims to identify limiting factors to the vaccination effort, attitude towards COVID-19, and attitude towards the vaccine. During the survey, doubts of the participants on COVID-19 vaccine were also addressed. Subject and Methods: It was a cross-sectional web and physical interview based survey using validated questionnaire developed in the google form to assess 695 voluntary participants of Assam, India. Results: 52.09% of the participants were acceptable to COVID-19 vaccine, and 21.30% participants were vaccinated. About 41.87% of the respondents were hesitating to get vaccinated, and 10.64% of the participants refused. Education shows inverse relation to vaccine hesitancy. Interestingly, housewives were found to be hesitating the most (OR = 5.113, 95CI% = 1.347-19.399, p = 0.016). Retired person (OR = 4.061, 95CI% = 1.464 – 11.262, p = 0.007) and 60 plus age group (OR = 0.373, 95CI% = 0.153 – 0.911, p = 0.031) show a refusal to the vaccine. 99.7% of the participants have taken at least one preventive measures depicts there is a positive attitude towards COVID-19. Digital knowledge is one of the important aspects associated with participants getting vaccinated (p > 0.05). Conclusion: There are concerns about COVID-19 vaccine safety and its efficacy. Government-sponsored awareness programme or non-governmental organization (NGO) can launch awareness programmes to shed light on critical areas to eliminate vaccine-related doubts. Key sources of information can be used to channel authentic information to narrow down the anti-vaccine folks.