Will the high acceptance rate of coronavirus disease 2019 vaccine in Morocco accelerate the recovery of neurosurgical practice?

Abstract

Background: In developing countries, where there is a chronic shortage of neurosurgeons and medical infrastructures, the pandemic has taken a heavy toll on neurosurgical activities. In the absence of a curative treatment, reaching herd immunity through mass vaccination campaigns is the best hope we have of ending this pandemic. Therefore, the purpose of our study was first to assess the effect of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak on neurosurgical services of a Moroccan tertiary hospital. Secondarily, we aimed to describe current vaccination compliance rate in our country, and its impact on the recovery of neurosurgical practice. Methods: To examine how COVID-19 challenged the neurosurgical delivery of care in our unit, we compared emergency and elective admissions during COVID-19 and pre-COVID-19 period using the registry of neurosurgery department. Second, after evaluating vaccine acceptance rates among 1463 healthcare workers and patients admitted to our hospital, we compared the number of surgeries performed in our department after implementation of a mass vaccination campaign. Results: The overall number of procedures dropped from n = 197 (pre-COVID-19) to n = 150 during COVID-19. The number of elective surgeries declined from an average of 10.5 operations per week before COVID-19 to four surgeries per week during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conversely, an average of 3.5 emergency operations was performed each week before COVID-19 compared to 5.6 per week during the pandemic. On the other hand, our results showed that willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccine among the participants was high (81.7%) with significantly less hesitant individuals among healthcare workers (P = 0.001). This successful vaccine rollout helped resuming gradually elective surgeries in our department. Conclusion: Our study found a high acceptance rate of COVID-19 vaccines among Moroccans, which gives a glimmer of hope of restoring all our neurosurgical services. However, despite the high acceptance rate, the authorities must address concerns among hesitant individuals and raise awareness on the importance of COVID-19 immunization.