Objective:

This synthesis aimed to assess prevailing social systems and behaviours to identify challenges and opportunities towards COVID-19 responses in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia.

Methods:

We searched information using set of broad topic-related terms to include articles and documents reporting country specific information on the identified factions of the social systems. The sources included country specific websites, Pub-Med, Google and Google scholar, with full text documents retrieved from HINARI.

Results:

The challenges identified include media’s overemphasis of contagious nature of the disease leading into resentment of the infected people in the community; the cultural practices such as greetings by shaking hands and large gatherings in weddings and funerals which are likely to increase risks of transmission of COVID-19; limited access to water challenging hand washing practices; and unreliable income sources to majority of the community members leading to reliance on daily informal activities to earn a living. All such activities make physical distancing less practical. The opportunities included involvement of religious institutions in provision of health education; enhancing risk communication with the public through different digital and traditional media channels; and the extended family living arrangements as protection to vulnerable elderly population.

Conclusion:

The synthesis has identified several challenges and opportunities of the social system in COVID-19 response in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. The opportunities should be capitalized upon to inform context specific preventive measures and challenges be addressed for prompt prevention of infection transmissions..