International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | March 2022 | Vol 9 | Issue 3 Page 1439 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Prasanna P et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2022 Mar;9(3):1439-1445 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article A prospective survey to determine the general awareness and knowledge on COVID vaccinations among general public attending the vaccination clinic under a tertiary care hospital Preetha Prasanna 1 , Pranav Veepanattu 1 , Fabia Edathadathil 2 , Binil Babu 1 , Ajitha Ayyappan 1 , Rejitha P. Sundaram 1 , Mahitha Mohan 1 , Arya G. K. 1 , Aswathy Sreedevi 3 , Beena K. V., Merlin Moni, Dipu Thareparambil Sathyapalan* INTRODUCTION The COVID 19 pandemic has resulted in a devastating impact across the globe, ever since the first case was announced in December 2019, Wuhan city, China. Majority of the countries had initially adopted a strategy to reduce the transmission of the disease by using non pharmaceutical interventions including enforcing usage of masks, hands sanitization, social distancing, travel restrictions, and partial or complete lockdowns [2] . The global scientific community reaches to a conclusion that vaccination is the most effective way to combat the pandemic through mass vaccination of population around ABSTRACT Background: The global impact of COVID pandemic has been unprecedented and had expedited the urgent need of mass vaccination especially in a densely populated country like India. Sustained efforts in strategies for increase the vaccination campaigns are essential at the community level to address the acceptance of vaccines. The perception of public understanding on COVID vaccinations would help healthcare professionals advise the public on vaccination and guide policy decisions. The aim of the study was to discover knowledge gaps related to various aspects of COVID vaccination among the general population and enhance awareness that improves the vaccination practice. Methods: A semi structured questionnaire was administered exploring the knowledge and awareness of public was conducted in a tertiary care centre located in southern part of India. The study participants were contacted during the time of vaccination. The key domains we collected from our survey included general perception on vaccines, knowledge on vaccine practice, vaccination practices on special population, vaccine specific knowledge and vaccine related socio-cultural factors on vaccinations. Results: Valid and complete responses were obtained from 4471 participants, among this majority were female participants (61.04%) with the median age of 36 years. Majority of the participants had a belief that vaccines are effective 3415 (81.8%) for preventing COVID-19. Conclusions: Vaccination campaigns must consider strong public participation and contextually relevant communication tactics for the better acceptability. Furthermore, we need a targeted capacity building initiative with more emphasis towards vulnerable populations to be implemented on vaccination. Keywords: COVID-19, Vaccination, Pandemic, Vaccine hesitancy 1 Department of Infectious Diseases, 2 Department of Infection control and Epidemiology, 3 Department of Community Medicine, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi, Kerala, India Received: 14 January 2022 Accepted: 15 February 2022 *Correspondence: Dipu Thareparambil Sathyapalan, E-mail: diputsmck@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20220710