By Mabinty M. Kamara
Officials of the Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Health and Sanitation and the World Health Organization (WHO) have assured of the efficacy and safety of the recently received Ebola Virus Disease vaccine.
The vaccine received by health officials last weekend at the Freetown International Airport from the Johnson and Johnson pharmaceutical is said to prevent EVD infections among people.
A total of 30, 000 regimen of the vaccine is said to have been approved for Sierra Leone from the manufacturers Johnson and Johnson to protect people at high risk of the disease.
Each regimen, according to officials, consists of two doses and would be given to the beneficiaries approximately eight weeks apart. The first consignment received on Saturday 10th April consists of 640 doses followed by another consignment of 3,840 the following day more is expected to come.
Speaking at the official handing over ceremony of the vaccine to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation at its Youyi building office in Freetown on the 12th of April 2021, the WHO Representative in Sierra Leone Dr. Steven Velabo Shongwe said that Sierra Leone has been prioritized as a priority one country for Ebola preparedness mechanisms since the declaration of the Ebola virus in Guinea because of its proximity and linkages.
“Sierra Leone is the first country among the six countries neighboring Guinea that have been prioritized for Ebola preparedness to have received vaccine in the context of this current outbreak in Guinea, this is a great achievement, which would not have been possible without the partnership, and without strong leadership from the government of Sierra Leone,” he said.
He said that the vaccine has gone through verification processes which has approved its usage.
He commended the government of Sierra Leone for their early preparedness strides against the Ebola virus disease in the country even before it struck.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Minister of Health and Sanitation, Dr. Austin Demby said that the country has put in place several preventive and preparedness mechanisms and assured that the vaccine was appropriate for use in the country.
“It requires regular vaccine refrigeration temperature for storage. I think it’s a better vaccine to manage at least for this circumstance and because of the temperature requirement. So we are very pleased that this is available to us and the kind of dosses we got is very impressive. We have some history with this vaccine because Sierra Leone was one of the first countries where this vaccine was evaluated and so there are many people with us here who were part of that evaluation process,” he said.
“By the time the vaccines were ready and evaluation process were going on, there was an outbreak in DR Congo so we were very lucky that our hard work here helped the DR Congo. They went there and were able to deploy this vaccine and the early results shows a 100 percent efficacy ratio and the safety records were extremely good. So for us in Sierra Leone, even before any product arrives, we engage the pharmacy board to evaluate all of the aspect of the vaccines and agreed to authorize emergency use of the vaccine.”
However, he said that they are not going to rely on the Vaccines as a silver bullet but that the country was going to use its past experience, such as managing the patients in the hospital and adopting strategic communication with the communities, amongst others to prevent the virus from evading Sierra Leone like it did in 2014.
He added that there is a strong monitoring and verification team to monitor whosoever takes the vaccines to ensure the safety of the people.
The vaccine according to officials will target healthcare workers in the border districts who are at higher risk of infection with plans for more community vaccination as the opportunity avails itself.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online 12/03/21
