The International Coalition Against Coronavirus (ICAC) is urging African governments to be cautious when receiving Covid-19 vaccines, warning them to be on the lookout for rejects that may harm people.
ICAC, which has chapters across southern, west and central Africa, said African government must make sure these vaccines are authentic and would not result in dangerous side effects for Africans.
The organisation was also against the vaccine trials that took place in South Africa, which began its first trial on June 24.
Read: https://cite.org.zw/regional-body-to-lobby-against-covid-19-vaccine-trials-in-africa/
In an interview with CITE, the third vice president of ICAC based in Zimbabwe, Max Mkandla said caution had to be practiced considering that pharmaceutical companies developed Covid-19 vaccines before the projected timelines.
“It is good that we have seen developments emerging on the Covid-19 vaccines and that superpowers have started to vaccinate their citizens but we are in fact urging African leaders not to rush and do same without making sure these vaccines are safe for their citizens,” he said.
Mkandla urged African leaders to first certify that the vaccines were safe for locals before rolling them out.
“Our countries must look very closely at these vaccines and determine if they are authentic. They must just watch and see those who have been vaccinated in those developed countries and see how they progress. We have noted before how some medications have yielded harmful effects for Africans and we don’t want any form of testing done on our people,” he said.
The activist urged doctors, medical professors and security in Africa to be on the lookout and prevent a sinister motive considering that less than a year was taken to come up with Covid-19 vaccines.
“When I say security I mean the intelligence security must make sure there are no sinister motives and double check these vaccines because politics can be played around with. As a result we kindly request fellow African states to double check these so called vaccines to make sure if they are authentic,” Mkandla said.
Experts in developed countries monitoring the developments noted that the Covid-19 vaccines have expected side-effects, but these were of no cause for concern and together with the World Health Organisation (WHO) have debunked myths that one can be infected with Covid-19 from the vaccine.
Among the three vaccines for which efficacy results have been announced, almost all the available doses of two of them, developed by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech – the Covid-19 vaccines have already been acquired by rich countries, leaving 90 percent of the population in dozens of poorer countries likely to miss out on the vaccine next year recent reports have said.
According to the People’s Vaccine Alliance, rich countries have hoarded enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations nearly three times over.
