The general public have been assured of the usefulness of the COVID-19 Vaccines which are there to ensure that human immunity is built against the virus without any unknown effect to the human system as far as research is concerned.
This disclosure was made by a Public Health Expert and Professor of Pediatrics Prof. Christopher Yilgwan when he appeared on a Special COVID-19 Vaccine Awareness aired on KT 103.9 FM brought by Comrade Friday Bako with support from MacArthur Foundation and CITAD on Tuesday 26th July 2022.
Prof Yilgwan who incidentally is also the co-chairman Federal Ministry of Health COVID-19 Case management pillar community of practice gave his Professional Advice on the COVID-19 Vaccine Safety.
He pointed out that the vaccines in circulation have been certified by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be safe, effective and useful for full use by the public urging the people to ignore all fake news and conspiracy theories aimed at misleading the general public about the vaccines. He noted that haven taken three dozes of the vaccines, he has not been affected in anyway and admonished the people to ensure they are vaccinated.
In his own words “Vaccines are foreign bodies introduced into our body to help boost immunity and help our body get prepared to fight infections and the COVID-19 Vaccines passed through several processes and approved for human use. There is no way any vaccine will be allowed to be brought into the public domain without it passing through all the processes and COVID-19 Vaccines passed through the appropriate stages of pre-clinical, clinical and post-clinical trials of testing vaccines”.
He stressed the COVID-19 vaccines were developed faster than expected as the processes were built on previous experiences with those involved in the production of other vaccines in the past with no shortcut made nor was there compromise of standard in the development of the COVID-19 Vaccines. He stressed that the same system used in producing the vaccine used by human is the same being put in place to develop the COVID-19 Vaccines without compromise.
He urged the public to trust the system used to develop, distribute and store vaccines which he said has not failed and are same with the system used in the past.
On defective vaccines, Prof Yilgwan said that anything produced, not just the vaccine that has been confirmed to have lost its potency is recalled. He informed that the World Health Organization, which is responsible for international public health has a dashboard assessable to the public online tracking the vaccine dozes distributed, administered and side effect of the vaccines globally, in that if any vaccine is noticed not to be performing according to expectation, such vaccine is recalled.
He stressed that the information that people are dying after the uptake of the vaccines is false, misleading and should be treated as fake. He expressed displeasure on how misinformation is affecting the uptake of the vaccines. According to him, misinformation preys on the ignorance of the people. He went further to state that the public should get information from trusted sources especially WHO, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) instead of relying on hearsays. He said the benefits of taking the vaccines far outweighs the risk of not taking same.
Nigeria Star News 