The demand for a COVID-19 vaccine in Kenya

ABSTRACT

The goal of achieving herd immunity to the coronavirus requires high vaccination acceptance levels on the part of the population. The objectives of this study were to: 1) Measure individuals’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a COVID-19 vaccine in Kenya; 2) evaluate the effect of vaccine characteristics (duration of protection and efficacy) and individuals’ socioeconomic variables on WTP, and 3) estimate the aggregate demand and economic value of a COVID-19 vaccine. The contingent valuation (CV) method was used as the basis for the analyses. Data for this study were obtained from a survey of 1,050 individuals in Kenya conducted from April 7 to April 15, 2020. The survey included CV questions using a double-bounded dichotomous choice format. Results reveal that most of the individuals in Kenya (at least 96%) were willing to accept a COVID-19 vaccine. Approximately 80% of individuals were willing to pay a positive amount. Conservative estimates of individuals’ mean WTP for the vaccine range from USD 49.81 to USD 68.25 (depending on vaccine characteristics). Both vaccine duration of protection and efficacy were found to influence WTP (p < .10). The perceived probability of being hospitalized, age, gender, education, location and region of residence, and household income were also found to be associated with WTP for the vaccine (p < .10). In conclusion, the COVID-19 vaccine is highly valued and accepted by the Kenyan population; however, a high percent of the population is unwilling to pay for it or is only willing to pay a low price.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• SARS-C0V-2
• vaccine acceptance
• willingness to pay
• vaccine attributes
• Africa

Contributions

Conceptualization, methodology, CC, OS, DH, AM, MS; formal analysis investigation, resources, writing – original draft preparation CC, OS, DH; writing – review and editing CC, OS, DH, AM, MS. All authors attest they meet the ICMJE criteria for authorship.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interest or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2021.1938494

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this project was provided by the Larry Combest Endowed Chair for Agricultural Competitiveness, Texas Tech University.