ABSTRACT:
Background and

OBJECTIVES:
COVID-19 has claimed more than 7 million lives and contributed to approximately 767 million confirmed cases globally. Vaccinating against COVID-19 and increasing is the most cost-effective public health measure in the control of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Investigating seroprevalence antibodies is crucial for understanding population immunity. The study aims to describe the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, COVID-19 vaccine uptake and hesitancy amongst students at a tertiary institution in Gauteng Province.

METHODS:
This was a retrospective cross-sectional descriptive study design where secondary data collected from a tertiary institution was used. The above-mentioned independent study collected data using a standardised and approved data collection tool and information obtained from the study was used for the analysis. The analysis was done using STATA 17 SE (StataCorp, Texas).

RESULTS:
The majority of respondents 97% (n=546) were between the ages of 18-30 years. 45% of the participants were vaccinated against COVID-19 compared to 55% (n=308) of the participants who were not vaccinated. Of those who tested positive for IgG antibodies, 53% were vaccinated compared to the 47% who were not vaccinated and had previously been exposed to COVID-19. Approximately 104 participants did not display any history of previous or current exposure to COVID-19 among those who were not vaccinated, and about 17 participants who were vaccinated had no antibodies of SARS-Cov-2 at the time of testing.

CONCLUSIONS:
Although females presented to have a higher vaccination uptake compared to males, it can be concluded that the vaccine uptake is relatively still low.