Dr Norman Mabasa
Since the vaccine was approved and distributed, many people have asked themselves whether they should or should not take the vaccine. To answer this question one must first address the question of what the vaccine is meant for. The vaccine is meant to protect the body from being infected by Covid-19.
What is a direct fear is that anyone can be infected by the coronavirus. That fear is certain. But looking at why the vaccine was manufactured one remains with the hope that maybe they may not be infected. That hope and possibly confidence is important.
I must declare that I shall take the vaccine once it’s available. I therefore would encourage all my patients to take the vaccine. All the conspiracy theories and questions are baseless as this is a new vaccine. Any other vaccines which are now routinely being administered followed the same trend when they were manufactured. They also went through trials and I suppose their efficacy and safety was questioned. The only test they should pass is that they should go through rigorous clinical trials.
Normally drugs come with instructions or guidelines of what to do should adverse effects develop. With this vaccine it would be very difficult to anticipate an adverse effect because there is no profile. Patients are advised to rush to doctors when they experience intolerable side-effects. Now what happens when the doctor is also in the dark?
What about drug interaction, pregnancy, other comorbidities? All those have not yet been tested and profiled. Ten years down the line when I want to retire in peace I must not find myself in court defending a class action for something that benefited some fat cats who were clever enough to take immunity from litigation.
There is no doubt that there are a lot of questions about the Covid-19 vaccine, for good or bad reasons by both society and doctors alike. Whether the conspiracy theories abound in the news and social media makes this vaccine different from others, particularly its haste in development, skipping all the conventional stages of new drug development. The vaccine has not been clinically trialed and basically the whole population will be guinea pigs. Physicians do not know the safety profile and therefore what to anticipate as adverse effects of the drug.
As is the case with many medicines in the early stages of development we don't have the medium and long term effects of this vaccine. Manufacturers have not addressed the issue of liability if something adverse occurs.
My understanding is that the answer lies on intent:
* The jab is given with intent to prevent disease.
* The practitioner had no intention to cause harm.
* The treatment was based on the cost benefit analysis at the time.
* The patients consented to the treatment and presented themselves uncoerced.
* The treatment is reasonably justified for the case.
Therefore, unforeseen burden consequences are not for the practitioner otherwise the practice of medicine becomes almost impossible if the above conditions of practice are waived.
Any person at any given time or place can litigate. However, the litigation has to pass the muster of being reasonable, objective and rational.
The questions that still need to be answered revolve around issues of transportation, storage and ensuring that the vaccine is not damaged.
There are many challenges as per recent reports. One may give an example of the virus changing shape and no longer responding like it happened with our AstraZeneca vaccine from India. Those are developmental challenges. Our inoculation had to be postponed because our variant could not respond.
Another example is an incident in Japan. Millions of people in Japan will not receive Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine as planned due to a shortage of specialist syringes – an oversight that could frustrate the country’s inoculation programme.
Standard syringes in use in Japan are unable to extract the sixth and final dose from each vial manufactured by the US drugmaker, according to the health minister, Norihisa Tamura.
Japan has secured 144 million shots of the Pfizer vaccine – enough for 72 million people – on the assumption that each vial contained six doses.
Each recipient requires two jabs, three weeks apart, to increase the level of protection, according to Pfizer.
But a shortage of low “dead space” syringes – which have narrow plungers that can push out any leftover vaccine – means vaccinators in Japan will have to use mainly standard syringes that are capable of extracting only five doses per vial, or enough for 60 million people.
“The syringes used in Japan can only draw five doses,” Tamura said, according to the Kyodo news agency. “We will use all the syringes we have that can draw six doses, but it will, of course, not be enough as more shots are administered.”
Having said so, prevention will always be better than cure. It remains wise to be ready to protect ourselves despite teething problems.
Go get your vaccinations.
* Dr Mabasa is a practising GP and a former Health MEC in Limpopo
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
The Sunday Independent