Abstract

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Somalia is huge from the way people are working, some companies have changed the workplace, adopting the social distancing, putting in place the personal protecting equipment policy. We will assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices of the international workers in Beledweyne Somalia.

Methods: The study population is from the community of expatriate workers in Beledweyne/Somalia. A cross sectional study using a questionnaire administered to the sample population after an informed signed consent form. The data was collected, entered in Epidata Software and analyzed by the SPSS software. This study was conducted from December 2020 to March 2021.

Results: The study population was 108, 92.4% of male with a mean age of 37. Knowledge about COVID-19 was high with 93.5% with good knowledge on preventive measures, 75.9% able to identify vulnerable population, 80.4% have a good knowledge of modes of transmission and 88.9% could identify signs and symptoms of COVID-19. The population has positive attitude towards COVID-19 preventive measures with 93.5% on wearing masks, 95.4% on regular handwashing practice and 90.7% on social distancing. The positive perception on closure of businesses and school was low compared to other preventive measures. The acceptability of COVID-19 vaccine was 63% with a significance difference between the vaccine acceptance and level of education. Respondents with tertiary education had tendency to have a negative acceptance of the vaccine. The practice on prevention of COVID-19 is generally good with 79.7% on keeping always/often physical distancing, 77.8% always wear masks and 82.4% always avoid the handshaking. The availability of resources (Handwashing points, water, soap, hand sanitizer gel, facial masks) was estimated at 100%.

Conclusion: In general, the knowledge, attitudes and practices towards COVID-19 among the respondent were very good. The efforts from stakeholders have to focus on running continuous sensitization campaigns for COVID-19 preventive measures to keep the same stand in general to observe the preventive measures, and work on the acceptability of the COVID-19 vaccine within the community.

Keywords: COVID-19; Knowledge; Attitudes; Practices; Workplace; Somalia; International Workers

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