Philippines, African Union, suspend COVID-19 vaccine jabs

The perceived or obvious dangers, including inherent complications in the supply chain of AstraZeneca vaccine are generating fresh apprehensions across the world. On Thursday, Australia and the Philippines had restricted AstraZeneca vaccine jabs in the counties. The African Union (AU) had also turned the decision to purchase the vaccine as global shortages occur in the supply chain.

The AstraZeneca vaccine was developed in collaboration with Oxford University in the midst of global propaganda of complexities of the coronavirus outbreak and the associated creative trepidation across many countries of the world.

Both the vaccine and the producers have been engulfed in crisis of safety or side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine in countries of early usage, forcing several countries in Europe to suspend or ban the administration of AstraZeneca vaccine on their citizens. The global uproar precipitated the emergence of Regulators in the United Kingdom.

Perhaps, the earlier rejection and suspension of AstraZeneca vaccine by several European countries had obstructed mass production of the vaccine as the producer may have been calculating the losses or uncertainty of the products acceptability.

The fear was also germane as Nigeria and some other African countries were recording healing or recoveries from coronavirus by those identified to have tested positive to coronavirus who after about 10 or 14 days at isolation centres were confirmed to have recovered and tested negative to the virus. Such achievement was made at as time the World Health Organisation (WHO) and some international health experts embarked on the propaganda that coronavirus has no cure and that no vaccine had been discovered for the treatment or prevention of coronavirus, yet people were recovering from the infection.

However, on the outburst of second wave of coronavirus in Europe, some decisions were reviewed but then, the crisis of supply shortages had erupted. The Phase III trial results published in December, compelled Indonesia to ban AstraZeneca vaccine and begin to seek alternative vaccines from producers or brands.

The Philippines restrained AstraZeneca vaccine jabs for people under 60 years of after Europe’s regulator revealed on Wednesday it found rare cases of blood clots among some adult recipients. However, there are those who still believe the vaccine has benefits that outweigh its risks.

Australia also suspended the use of AstraZeneca vaccine, preferring the use of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for people under 50 years of age.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian government has continued to impose AstraZeneca vaccine on citizens. AstraZeneca vaccine has been revealed to by far be the cheapest and most high-volume launched across the world, the Nigerian government has allocated about N368 billion to procure the cheapest vaccine.

Meanwhile, the controversies ensue, new cases of coronavirus infection have dropped significantly in Nigeria, which would require the dissolution of all structures set up by the government for managing the virus which actual existence us still an issue of controversy.