ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the triad of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccination hesitancy, and mental health in Southern Africa. The pandemic has contributed to two main problems: vaccine hesitancy and mental health problems. First, the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in Southern Africa were threatened by vaccine hesitancy. The low vaccine coverage and the vaccine hesitancy undermined the efforts to fight the pandemic. Historical, structural, mythical, sociocultural, and other systemic factors reinforced vaccine hesitancy. Second, the COVID-19 pandemic stimulated the surge of various mental health disorders in Africa, such as the rise in stress, anxiety, and depression. This dramatic upsurge in mental health symptoms and disorders can be attributed to disease experience, deaths, lockdowns, social distancing, stigma, discrimination, and job losses. The chapter argues that the COVID-19 pandemic brought a unique disruptive moment of unprecedented proportions in world history, affecting all spheres of life.
