• The Ministry of Health decided to engage the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) with the support of DFID/FCDO to support provision of free tickets for the first 50 people who would be willing to receive COVID-19 vaccine before they enter the football pitch to watch a game. In a big and most popular matches that meet the two biggest football clubs in the country, the number is usually raised to 100 fans. During such occasions, Vaccinators would set their vaccination point close by the main entry gate to target volunteers. It has been reported that, more other people would volunteer to receive the vaccination beyond the targeted number. Initially, this intervention was used when popular football teams were playing and was only limited in Dar Es Salaam. Currently this is widespread across the country, including Dodoma and Morogoro towns, and involves all football matches in the premier league championship in the country. Discussions and plans are underway to increase the number of beneficiaries from 100 to 500 people per match.

• Through this initiative, a total of 861 people have been vaccinated from a total of 9 football matches that were targeted. In addition, 200 more people volunteered to get vaccinated on site despite the fact that they did not receive any tickets. This initiative together with other country-wide initiatives undertaken by the country partners in promoting COVID-19 vaccination have contributed to the current improvement of vaccination coverage.

• This initiative is helpful as one way of social mobilization for COVID-19 vaccination programme. Sports in general and football in particular are among the widely loved activities and linking them to vaccination programming is a reasonable idea. Despite the fact that it has a cost implication, it is a feasible approach during emergencies like in the present case with COVID-19 vaccination.

Targeting sites with large number of people for COVID-19 vaccination is one of the best practices that has shown to accelerate vaccination coverage