COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptability in Mozambique

In this paper, we study how to address two relevant threats to COVID-19 vaccines acceptability in Mozambique: the low level of trust in the national health system's capacity and the wild circulation of fake news. We survey by phone participants in two previous randomized controlled trials in the Great Maputo Area and Cabo Delgado's province. In the follow-up survey, we test three interventions over the phone, which we implement in a cumulating fashion. First, we convey a simple message endorsing vaccination against COVID-19. This message represents our benchmark intervention. Second, we add a statement praising a previous successful immunization campaign that eradicated wild polio to lever social memory. We test whether the memory of an earlier achievement can increase trust in the capacity to operationalize the vaccination campaign against COVID-19 successfully. Third, we add a simple pre-bunking intervention against fake news based on psychological inoculation. We first interactively raise awareness about how fake information about COVID-19 vaccines may generate and spread by asking the respondent to share her worst concerns. We then convey a message about the dangers of contributing to create and spread fake news. We hope to contribute with our findings to inform the Mozambican communication to increase COVID-19 vaccines as it approaches the country's first delivery date.