What are the implications to public health practice?
- The results of this study will serve as an input for policy and decision makers, to revise the current strategies and design better programs which address in combating COVID-19 pandemic.
Introduction
Covid-19 is one of the varieties of virus that causes sickness in humans. In December 2019, officials in Wuhan, China, initially characterized the condition caused by the new coronavirus COVID-19, later dubbed SARS-CoV-2. COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. By 2020, the global spread had been rapid, with at least one case documented in 182 of 202 nations. However, as of January 28, 2020, there had been no confirmed occurrences in Africa. In Ethiopia, FMoH confirmed the first case of COVID-19 in Addis Ababa on March 13, 2020.[1-5]
Globally, as of September 3 of 2021, there had been 218,946,836 and 4,539,723 COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths, respectively. In Africa, there have been more than 5,689, 356 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 136,742 deaths. Between 3 January 2020 and 3 September 2021, there were 310,994 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ethiopia, with 4,711 deaths.[6, 7]
Nations across the world have launched various Covid-19 prevention measures, including restricted movement, quarantine, and nationwide lockdown. Additionally, individual and community actions to improve hand hygiene, physical distancing, and the use of face masks were also implemented. Despite global implementation of such measures, the burden of the pandemic has not been reduced significantly. Thus, a large-scale awareness-creation campaign on prevention, including a vaccination campaign across the globe, seems to be the only way out of this epidemic.[8-11]
Regardless of the enormous national steps taken to battle the outbreak, the success or failure of these initiatives is mostly determined by public behavior. To prevent the spread of the disease, public compliance with WHO and CDC recommended preventive measures is critical. The public’s knowledge, attitude and practice of COVID-19 are likely to influence compliance to suggested prevention measures. [12-14]
Therefore, public awareness and practice of prevention measures are critical in combating pandemics. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess the status of the level of knowledge, attitude, practice, and determinants toward COVID-19 recommended prevention measures among the general population of Harar, Eastern Ethiopia, in 2021.