Awareness and Perception of COVID-19 Vaccine among Computer Science Students in Higher Education in Southeast Nigeria Edeh Michael Onyema 1 , Akindutire Opeyemi Roselyn 2 , Chibuoke Eziamaka Emelisana 3 , Ani Nicholas Chijioke 4 , Osijirin Adesegun 5 1 Department of Vocational and Technical Education, Faculty aculty of Education, Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, Abakaliki, Nigeria. mikedreamcometrue@gmail.com 2 Department of Statistics, Ekiti State University Ekiti, Nigeria, roselynopeyemi@gmail.com 3 Department of Computer Science, Gregory University Uturu (Enugu Study Centre), Abia, Nigeria 4 Department of Computer Science, Gregory University Uturu (Enugu Study Centre), Abia, Nigeria 5 Department of Applied Sciences, Federal College of Dental Technology and Therapy, Enugu, Nigeria Abstract— The study investigated the perception and acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine (AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine) among Computer Science students in higher institutions in Southeast Nigeria. A cross-sectional population-based online survey was conducted and data was collected using a Google Forms-based structured English language questionnaire that was distributed to computer science students from the selected institutions. To test association between variables, the Chi-square statistic was used. Statistical significance was defined as a two-tailed p-value of less than 0.05. Over the course of the study, 116 replies were obtained. With 67.2 percent of male respondents, the average age of the respondents was 20.5, and 83.6 percent (97/116) were undergraduate students. All of the participants were well aware of the vaccine's availability and were eager to get immunized. It was shown that over 90% of respondents, particularly students in the research area, were willing to be vaccinated. The vaccination was also found to be freely accessible by the pupils, who had a positive attitude and a high level of acceptance. Keywords— COVID-19 Vaccine, Acceptance, Perception, Computer Science student, Southeast Nigeria ———————————————————— 1 INTRODUCTION Vaccines are significant in reducing or containing the rapidity of diseases (Rodrigues &Nosanchuk., 2020).Following immunization, smallpox was declared eradicated in May 1980. (Meyer et al., 2020). Vaccines work lowers the risk of infection. When a person is vaccinated, their immune system is prompted to produce disease-fighting responses (Cox et al., 2004). COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the world like no other occurrence in recent decades, and is widely regarded as the worst public health crisis since World War II (Baum et al., 2020; Mohit et al, 2020; Onyema et al, 2021). Continual analogies have been made to the devastating 1918 H1N1 epidemic, also known as the "Spanish flu." Consequently, drastic precautions were made then, as they are now, to safeguard the public from the virus and prepare health institutions to handle enormous crowds of sick individuals. Face masks were required in many parts of the world in both occurrences, schools were shuttered, and social gatherings were restricted, according to Onyema et al (2020) and Edeh et al (2020). The pandemic began with a pneumonia outbreak caused by an unknown source. It quickly turned into a terrible pandemic, spreading to every country and harming public health as well as producing socioeconomic problems around the world, according to Chakraborty and Maity (2020). According to the weekly COVID-19 epidemiological update, the number of death cases reduced in June 2021, with 2.5 million new cases and 64000 fatalities, a 6 percent and a 12 percent decline in comparison to previous instances. While the number of cases reported worldwide has now surpassed 281 million. The mortality rate remains high, with over 5 million deaths worldwide. Except for the Eastern Mediterranean and African regions, the number of deaths reported has reduced in all regions, according to Saha et al (2021). A study by Adamu et al (2021), COVID-19 vaccination tolerability in Nigeria and concluded that many were unwilling to take the Jab. The chi-square test and Odds Ratios (ORs) were used in bivariate analysis, and statistical significance was recognized when the p-value was less than 0.05. The results revealed that 34.70±5.00% of the university community would accept the COVID- 19 vaccine if it were supplied to them. The COVID-19