By Mabinty M. Kamara
Sierra Leone is set to receive more vaccines in the coming weeks in a bid to meet the growing need for vaccination of the country’s population. This as the AstraZeneca vaccine stocks out.
According to the Public Health Emergency Communications lead, Harold Thomas they are purchased with funds that have already been remitted by the government of Sierra Leone from the World Bank Project to procure more vaccines in addition to those donated under the COVAX initiative and by China.
With the surge in the number of confirmed Covid19 cases and fatalities recorded in the third wave of the pandemic mostly from the Delta variant of the virus, Sierra Leone accelerated its vaccination drive from the initial target of 20% of the population aimed at people 70 years and older and frontline workers, to 80% (of 30-year-olds and above) over a month ago.
Thomas confirmed to Politico that they had administered a little over 20,000 people with the first and second doses of both the Oxford-AstraZeneca and the Chinese Sinopharm vaccines and that people were still turning out to receive the jab.
However, he said the country was currently having a stock out of the Oxford AstraZeneca but that they were expecting another consignment in about two weeks’ time to replenish it.
“For the other vaccine, Sinopharm, we have about 200,000 (two hundred thousand) doses. And we are not expecting any stock out because we are still expecting more of Sinopharm and that of AstraZeneca and we are taking these vaccines in tranches because we do not want to compromise the integrity of these vaccines in terms of hosting and other things,” he said.
He added: “We do not take all of the vaccines at the same time but as and when necessary but we are not allowing ourselves to get a stock-out but then we are able to make a determination on when to request for the next tranche of the vaccine.”
In addition to the two types of vaccines that are being administered in the country, he said they were expecting some more brands such as Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturers of the recently-donated Ebola virus vaccine donated to the country.
There has been a growing fear among Sierra Leoneans about the efficacy and effects of the vaccines being administered, and how the emergency response center is able to address those issues as and when they arise since all COVID vaccines according to experts are still at its experimental stage.
However, Thomas said as with even the Polio vaccine that is administered by a drop in the mouth of a child, there are systems and structures in place to deal with both mild and adverse effects should they arise.
“In any vaccination, we have a team in the country that monitors adverse effects and we have a conservative committee made of experts including physicians and laboratory scientists and other disciplines to investigate any serious event or adverse effects and even take action to even treat some of them. And we always document them; we investigate any serious illness or death even when it is not linked. We have that body in Sierra Leone,” he said.
He said they had always encouraged the public to communicate any effect they encountered after vaccination through the 117 or 099 117117 telephone lines and that the calls can be routed to the appropriate authorities to address those concerns.
Since the vaccination started, he said, they had acted on about 60 of those reports and that majority had been mild effects.
June 2021 has been referred to as the month with the worst Covid19 cases in Sierra Leone with total confirmed cases of 1, 508 and 21 new deaths recorded.
Since its index case in March 2020, the country has so far recorded 5,793 confirmed cases with a total death of 106 (one hundred and six) with the Western Area Urban still leading the chart with a total of 3,519 (three thousand five hundred and nineteen) confirmed cases as of 4th July 2021.
Copyright © 05/07/21 Politico Online
