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March 12, 2021

COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine has no side effect – NAFDAC D-G

Uganda will import five million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines next month after the discovery of new COVID-19 variants in the country, President Yoweri Museveni has said. In a televised address to the nation late Friday, Museveni said the vaccines will be used to vaccinate at least 80 per cent of the 5.5 million elderly. People below 50 years, with underlying medical conditions that are at high risk of contracting the novel coronavirus, will also be vaccinated. Uganda targets to vaccinate more than 21.9 million people who face the highest risk of the infection, including the health workers, teachers, social workers and security personnel, elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. “The government is working hard to ensure we bring another five million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine before the end of May to complete the threshold vaccination and ensure that those vaccinated before getting the second booster dose,’’ said Museveni. “Vaccines are the most effective intervention we have against COVID-19. “The government and partners are working hard to bring vaccines to most adult Ugandans to protect them and to support us to reopen the economy and get back all our children to school.’’ Henry Mwebesa, Director-General of Health Services, last week said Uganda is scheduled to receive some two million more doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines in May through the COVAX facility. Uganda has so far received 964,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from the COVAX vaccine sharing programme and the Indian government. As of April 16, a total of 220,893 people had been inoculated with the first jab of AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19, according to the Ministry of Health statistics. The country has reported the emergence of the highly transmissible COVID-19 variants which were first reported in Britain, South Africa and Nigeria. The ministry’s data showed that as of April 16, Uganda had registered a cumulative total of 41,340 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 40,898 recoveries and 338 deaths.

Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), says the Astrazeneca vaccine recently inaugurated and distributed to states to treat COVID-19 has no side effect.

Adeyeye, who stated this on Thursday in Abuja, shortly after she got vaccinated, said that NAFDAC went through the application dossier of the vaccine before it was approved to be administered on Nigerians for the treatment of COVID-19.

“When we got the dossier or the application package of the vaccine, we went through it line by line, but before we got the application itself, we went through other assessments.

“I am talking about their assessment report so that we are prepared and guided when we start our own and that was exactly what happened.

“We conclude based on quality, safety and efficacy because we have to depend on the report, this particular AstraZeneca vaccine, over 20, 000 people were involved in phase three of the report,’’ she said.

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Adeyeye said that the effectiveness of AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh the risk, as it has already been scrutinised.

She noted that there was no medicine without its side effect, especially when still going through the developmental stage.

The director-general said that from all indications of quality and efficacy, the benefit of AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh the risk and the side effect.

She said that the agency also believed in herbal medicine, but it must be backed with research before such could be approved.

She added that such herbal medicine must be antiviral to cater for various illnesses.

Adeyeye said that the agency had accommodated 14 of such herbal medicine for listing to ascertain whether it was safe to use it.

She said that the agency must also do its own clinical trials before any herbal medicine would be approved.

She disclosed that the Federal Government had arranged for research and development scheme for the health sector, adding that, a lot of herbal medicine were going to be used for the testing.

Vanguard News Nigeria