South Africans urged to report vaccine side-effects as Sahpra probes 28 deaths
South Africans have been urged to report any side-effects after taking the Covid-19 jabs to their healthcare provider.
This comes after 28 deaths linked to vaccinations were reported to the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra).
The SA Medical Research Association (SAMRC) CEO, Professor Glenda Gray, says Saprah is investigating the deaths.
"Four of the deaths have been associated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the rest of the deaths have been associated with the Pfizer vaccine.
"These deaths will always be evaluated, we need to see why the people died, when they died and what they died of, and whether their deaths can be attributed to the vaccine.
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"It is very important for all family members and health care workers to report these cases so that the Department of Health and regulatory authorities are able to investigate these and see what is happening.
"I just want to remind you again that billions of doses of these vaccines have been given globally and we don't expect South Africans to behave differently to anywhere else in the world," said Gray.
The side effects include swelling, redness, and pain at the injection site, fever, headaches, tiredness, muscle pain, chills, and nausea.
There are also rare side-effects which include Thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, Anaphylaxis, Myocarditis/pericarditis, Guillain Barre Syndrome.
Gray said despite this, the vaccines are safe and effective.
"I need to remind South Africans that the only way to control this pandemic is via global immunisation. Everybody does need to be vaccinated, not just 20 or 30 percent but everybody.
"Already 26.8% of the world's population has received at least one dose of the covid-19 vaccine, so this accounts for 3.71 billion doses, so there is a lot of information about the safety of these vaccines."
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To date, 6 million South Africans have been vaccinated in the last seven months since the beginning of the rollout.
Gray said only 1.1% of people in low-income countries have received at least 1 dose.
"This means we are far behind high-income countries, and we have to really speed up our pace of vaccinations to ensure our continent is vaccinated in a rapid fashion."
