Dr. Monica Musenero, the Presidential Advisor on epidemics says vaccination comes with some effects such as a fever, heaviness of the hand and pain. She says these are a good sign that the vaccine is actually working.
As the
Health Ministry commences the COVID-19 vaccination targeting key people, experts
have advised Ugandans not to be alarmed if they experience some adverse effects
after immunization.
The Health Ministry
is expected to kick start the COVID-19 vaccination campaign using the AstraZeneca
vaccine at Mulago National Specialised Hospital before spreading the exercise
to other health facilities across the country.
Dr. Monica
Musenero, the Presidential Advisor on epidemics says vaccination comes with
some effects such as a fever, heaviness of the hand and pain. She says these
are a good sign that the vaccine is actually working.
//Cue in: “So far apart from ……….
Cue out: ………….body is
active,”//
She encourages those that will experience pain to use simple
pain killers such as Panadol. AstraZeneca
vaccine, which the government is going to use, has generated concern in a
number of countries including South Africa where vaccination was halted when it
was noticed that the drug wasn’t effective. On Sunday, the Austrian government halted
the use of AstraZeneca vaccine after one person died and another got sick after
vaccination.
The Austrian authorities said they were still investigating
the two cases, according to a report by Reuter’s news agency. When asked about
this, the Health Minister, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng said it’s not unheard of that
coagulation disorders happen after receiving any vaccine including the usual
ones on the routine immunization schedule. She also said there is confirmation
that the problems the two individuals got actually resulted from immunization.
Aceng says the decision to halt the vaccination of Austria
shows how cautious authorities around the world are about this quickly developed
vaccine and recently attained emergency use approval from the World Health
Organization. Even here, she assured Ugandans that everything is under
control and adverse events monitoring committee has been set up to speedily
detect anything that could happen unexpectedly.
On her part, Musenero who was addressing
members of the Health Journalists’ Network (HEJNU) said that the South African
and Austria incidents shouldn't keep people away from the shots as already the
issues earlier raised have been sorted.
She explains, for the South African case, initially the drug had been
made to work against the Wuhan COVID-19 strain but the pharmaceutical company
has since made updates and designed a vaccine that's effective for a number
of strains. Vaccination starts with a few health workers at Mulago National and
Entebbe Regional Referral hospitals.
Between March 11th and 15th when the
full blown mass immunization will be conducted, the Ministry hopes to vaccinate
150,000 health workers from both government and private hospitals. The exercise will take place at all public
health units from Health Center IIIs to hospitals across the country.
