Prioritization of operational research questions on COVID-19 vaccination in the African Region.

Introduction: a year after the start of COVID-19 vaccination, coverage remains very low in the African Region. Different challenges and operational barriers have been documented, but countries will need to supplement the available information with operational research in order to adequately respond to practical questions regarding how best to scale up COVID-19 vaccination. We conducted a survey among immunisation program staff working in the African Region, in order to identify the high priority operational research questions relevant to COVID-19 vaccination.

Methods: proposed operational research questions categorized into six topic areas were sent to resource persons, asking them to rate according to the relevance, urgency, feasibility, and potential impact of the research questions on the progress of COVID vaccination.

Results: a total of 25 research questions have been given an average weighted rating of 75% or more by the respondents. Nine of these top priority research questions were in the area of demand generation, risk communication and community engagement while 8 questions covered the area of service delivery.

Conclusion: countries should plan for and coordinate stakeholders to ensure that relevant operational research is done to respond to the top priority research questions, with a view to influence policies and implementation of strategies.