title: Assessment of parental perception of malaria vaccine in Tanzania.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Clinical trials of the RTS,S malaria vaccine have completed Phase III and the vaccine is on track for registration. Before making decisions about implementation, it is essential to prepare the ground for introducing the vaccine by assessing awareness and willingness to use malaria vaccines and to provide policy makers with evidence-based information on the best strategies to engage communities to manage the introduction of malaria vaccine in Tanzania.
  
  
  METHODS
  In November 2011, as part of a large cross-sectional study of all 23 regions of Tanzania (mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar) was conducted during Tanzanian Integrated Measles Campaign (IMC) survey. In this study, the variables of interests were awareness and willingness to use a malaria vaccine. The main outcome measure was willingness to use a malaria vaccine. Logistic regression was used to examine the influence of predictive factors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A representative sample of 5502 (out of 6210) women, aged 18 years or older and with children under 11 months old, was selected to participate, using random sampling probability. Awareness of the forthcoming malaria vaccine, 11.8 % of participants in mainland Tanzania responded affirmatively, compared to 3.4 % in Zanzibar (p value <0.0001). 94.5 % of all respondents were willing to vaccinate their children against malaria, with a slight difference between mainland Tanzania (94.3 %) and Zanzibar (96.8 %) (p value = 0.0167).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although mothers had low awareness and high willingness to use malaria vaccine, still availability of malaria vaccine RTS,S will compliment other existing malaria interventions and it will be implemented through the Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals (IVB) programme (formerly EPI). The information generated from this study can aid policy makers in planning and setting priorities for introducing and implementing the malaria vaccine.
authors.affiliation: Swiss Tropical and Public health Institute, Socinstrasse 57, Postfach, 4002, Basel, Switzerland. iromore@ihi.or.tz.|University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland. iromore@ihi.or.tz.|Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), P.O. Box 78373, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. iromore@ihi.or.tz.
authors.forename: Idda
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Romore
authors.affiliation: Swiss Tropical and Public health Institute, Socinstrasse 57, Postfach, 4002, Basel, Switzerland. aali@ihi.or.tz.|University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland. aali@ihi.or.tz.|Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), P.O. Box 78373, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. aali@ihi.or.tz.
authors.forename: Ali Mohamed
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Ali
authors.affiliation: Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Science (MUHAS), P.O. Box 65015, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. innosemali@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Innocent
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Semali
authors.affiliation: Commision for Science and Technology (COSTEC), P.O. Box 4302, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. hmshinda@costec.or.tz.
authors.forename: Hassan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mshinda
authors.affiliation: Swiss Tropical and Public health Institute, Socinstrasse 57, Postfach, 4002, Basel, Switzerland. marcel.tanner@unibas.ch.|University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland. marcel.tanner@unibas.ch.
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tanner
authors.affiliation: Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), P.O. Box 78373, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. sabdulla@ihi.or.tz.
authors.forename: Salim
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abdulla
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D058015:Health Communication; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D017780:Malaria Vaccines; D032541:Mass Vaccination / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010465:Perception; D013636:Tanzania; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D017780:Malaria Vaccines