Highlights To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study focused on COVID-19 associated mental health among the home-quarantined Bangladeshi university and college students. University students had greater psychological impact due to COVID-19 than college students. Perceived COVID-19 symptoms were significantly associated with higher scores in DASS stress subscale (B=3.71, 95% CI: 1.01 to 6.40), DASS anxiety subscale (B= 3.95, 95% CI: 1.95 to 5.96), DASS depression subscale (B=3.82, 95% CI: 0.97 to 6.67) and IES scores (B=7.52, 95% CI: 3.58 to 11.45). Physical exercise was significantly associated in lowering scores of DASS depression subscale (B= -2.10, 95% CI: -4.02 to -0.17) Financial uncertainty, fear of COVID-19 infection, inadequate valid information on COVID-19, and excessive exposure to COVID-19 news on social & mass media had significant negative impact on students’ mental health.

Vaccination is fast becoming a key intervention against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted cross-sectional online surveys to investigate COVID-19 vaccine acceptance across nine Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs; N = 10,183), assuming vaccine effectiveness at 90% and 95%. The prevalence of vaccine acceptance increased from 76.4% (90% effectiveness) to 88.8% (95% effectiveness). Considering a 90% effective vaccine, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, and five African countries (Democratic Republic of Congo, Benin, Uganda, Malawi, and Mali) had lower acceptance odds compared to Brazil. Individuals who perceived taking the vaccine as important to protect themselves had the highest acceptance odds (aOR 2.49) at 95% effectiveness. Vaccine acceptance was also positively associated with COVID-19 knowledge, worry/fear regarding COVID-19, higher income, younger age, and testing negative for COVID-19. However, chronic disease and female gender reduced the odds for vaccine acceptance. The main reasons underpinning vaccine refusal were fear of side effects (41.2%) and lack of confidence in vaccine effectiveness (15.1%). Further research is needed to identify country-specific reasons for vaccine hesitancy in order to develop mitigation strategies that would ensure high and equitable vaccination coverage across LMICs.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has imposed threats on both physical and mental health since its outbreak. This study aimed to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health among a representative sample of home-quarantined Bangladeshi adults. A cross-sectional design was used with an online survey completed by a convenience sample recruited via social media. A total of 1,427 respondents were recruited, and their mental health was assessed by the DASS-21 measure. The prevalence of anxiety symptoms and depressive symptoms was 33.7% and 57.9%, respectively, and 59.7% reported mild to extremely severe levels of stress. Perceptions that the pandemic disrupted life events, affected mental health, jobs, the economy and education, predictions of a worsening situation, and uncertainty of the health care system capacities were significantly associated with poor mental health outcomes. Multivariate logistic regressions showed that sociodemographic factors and perceptions of COVID-19 significantly predict mental health outcomes. These findings warrant the consideration of easily accessible lowintensity mental health interventions during and beyond this pandemic.

Highlights This is the first study to investigate the mental health status of Bangladeshi medical students during COVID-19 pandemic. The HADS anxiety subscale revealed that 65.9% of the medical students had different levels of anxiety, ranging from mild (27.3%), moderate (26.8%), and severe (11.8%). As per HADS depression subscale, 49.9% of the medical students had varying degrees of depressive symptoms, with 3.3% of the participants had suffered from severely severe depressive symptoms. Female students had a relatively more anxiety and depressive symptoms, when compared with males. The students, who were severely tensed of getting infected by the virus, were at higher risk of suffering from anxiety (3.5-fold) and depressive (2.7-fold) symptoms (2.7-fold), when compared with no/minimally stressed students.