‘ASTRAZENECA VACCINE GOOD DECISION FOR ESWATINI’

MBABANE - Barely two weeks after the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine was given the green light by WHO, its effectiveness has been highly applauded.

Latest studies show that one vaccine jab of the AstraZeneca vaccine proved to reduce COVID-19 hospitalisation by over 90 per cent.

This is according to the Daily Mail, which stated that public health officials from the United Kingdom told ministers in the country (the UK) that the remarkable results applied to both Oxford AstraZeneca and Pfizer BioNTech vaccines.

“It represents another huge boost to Britain’s world-beating vaccine rollout, which has now achieved nearly 20 million first injections. The hugely successful inoculation programme is threatened only by the small minority who are still refusing to take the jab,” read the Daily Mail.

Halted 

Worth noting is that this information comes a month after South Africa halted rolling out the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, after it was discovered and revealed by studies by the University of Witwatersrand that the vaccine was not effective against mild disease and against the South Africa variant.

It is the same discovery which made the Eswatini Government to temporarily put its Oxford AstraZeneca order with COVAX facility on hold.

However, the Ministry of Health later reverted to its former decision, and recommitted to the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, explaining that the whole point of procuring vaccines was to prevent COVID-19 severe illness and death. 

Infection 

Explaining this, the Minister of Health, Lizzie Nkosi, said vaccines, in general, did not prevent against infection but were meant to protect against severe illness.

“A person who gets infected after being vaccinated with the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine can have sniffles. However, the vaccines will fight against severe illness or death and our main aim is to prevent death,” said Nkosi.

The country is currently waiting on the delivery of 20 000 Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine doses from India and 108 000 Oxford AstraZeneca doses from COVAX facility. When sought for comment on the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine’s efficacy, the minister of Health said they were aware that the vaccine was highly effective. “That is why we continued with the Oxford AstraZeneca. We held meetings with researchers, AstraZeneca scientists at Oxford University and with the UK Public Health Unit before we committed. We already knew this,” said Nkosi. 

She said the vaccine was a good decision for the country.

“We need to protect ourselves from severe illness and reduce deaths. As a nation, we took quite a beating from the second wave and we need to prevent that from happening again,” said the minister.

When asked on the dates when the vaccine is expected, the minister said, “We are chasing the dispatches but our logistics team has not heard anything yet.”

World Health Organisation (WHO) Health Promotion Officer Dr Kevin Makadzange said a lot of evidence with regards to the different COVID-19 vaccines was being fed to the WHO.

“It is WHO’s responsibility to collect all this information that has been submitted and have it tested by our experts before we verify it,” said Dr Makadzange.

About three weeks ago, Dr Makadzange echoed the minister’s sentiments, saying the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine prevented severe illness and death.

The said vaccine was listed under the WHO Emergency Use Listing (EUL). It is the second vaccine candidate to be enlisted after the Pfizer BioNTech, which has 95 per cent efficacy. 

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