Chair of the National Immunisation Safety Expert Committee, Professor Hannelie Meyer has urged South Africans to report every adverse effects related to vaccination in the country. She was speaking at the Department of Health virtual briefing on Friday, updating the nation on South Africa’s fight against COVID-19.
The department has received a number of queries from people regarding death and side effects after immunisation.
Meyer says the committee is investigating a number of reports.
“Any health problem that happens after vaccination is considered an adverse effect by immunisation. It does not necessarily have a causal relationship with the use of the vaccine. All vaccines incidents must be reported. When they are reported, they are investigated, an assessment is done by the national immunisation safety expert committee. Then there is inconsistent causal association, which means the event happened after vaccination but it wasn’t caused by the vaccine. Some may have multiple comorbidities,” says Meyer.
A look at dos and don’ts before, after COVID-19 vaccination
Meanwhile, the Health Department’s Deputy Director-General, Dr Nicholas Crisp, has urged people between the ages of 35 and 49 to refrain from delaying their vaccinations – saying the health sector is preparing to inoculate younger age groups, starting next month.
Over 9 million vaccines have so far been administered nationwide. Crisp was speaking during a virtual media briefing.
“We are sitting in a situation where we don’t have a vaccine constraint at least for the next two months. Vaccination capacity is strong. Now we need vaccine demand. The 35-49-year-olds had a very good start but had not sustained their interest. But we want to caution people, once the young people of 18-34-year-olds arrive, there are 17 million people in that category from the 1st September and they will come in numbers for vaccinations I am sure. Then the 35-49-year-olds are going to wait in longer queues once more,” says Crisp.
Discussing Covid-19 vaccine booster shots with Thabani Maphosa
