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Busting vaccine myths among Sri Lankans

24 Aug 2021

By Sumudu Chamara  Several months ago, Sri Lankans were somewhat sceptical about getting vaccinated, and were questioning the Government’s ability to procure sufficient vaccine doses to vaccinate all citizens. The most pressing concern, however, was whether the Government and the health authorities would be able to bring the country to stability as far as the Covid-19 pandemic is concerned. With Sri Lanka securing, receiving, and administering more vaccine doses, the situation has changed; however, the staggering number of new Covid-19 cases and related deaths that are being reported on a daily basis emphasises that there is a great need to step up their efforts, especially the vaccination drive, to attain long-term results from what has been done so far. Securing vaccines As The Morning reported yesterday (24), Sri Lanka has already secured a total of 7,290,160 million vaccine doses of the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine and the German-US-made Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines. Out of the total number of vaccine doses, a consignment of one million doses of Sinopharm arrived in the country yesterday, while two consignments of two and four million vaccine doses, respectively, of the same vaccine will arrive in the country by the first week of September. Sri Lanka can expect to receive the rest of the vaccine doses by mid-September. With regard to the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, it has been reported that following a consignment of over 70,000 vaccine doses Sri Lanka received on 23 August, more vaccines are scheduled to reach the country on several occasions starting from 30 August. The Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka said that Sri Lanka has been given a total of 14.7 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine as of 23 August, out of which around 95% have already been administered. In fact, according to the data released by the Health Ministry’s Epidemiology Unit, Sinopharm is the most administered vaccine in Sri Lanka, out of the five types of vaccines Sri Lanka is currently administering, i.e. Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, Sinopharm, Russian Sputnik V, Pfizer-BioNTech, and the US Moderna vaccines. As per the latest update on the vaccination drive (updated at 10 a.m. yesterday), according to the Epidemiology Unit, Sri Lanka has administered a total of 17,933,988 doses of the abovementioned vaccines – 12,126,492 as the first dose and 5,807,496 as the second dose. The vaccination drive is continuing with the aim of vaccinating all persons above the age of 18 from mid-September of this year, which the health authorities anticipate would reduce the risk of the spread of Covid-19 within the population, in a context where a considerable share of the country’s population remains unvaccinated. Awareness As far as the procurement of vaccines is concerned, Sri Lanka shows promising signs. However, the challenge at hand is not obtaining vaccines – even though it was the case several months ago, especially when India’s Covid-19 situation reached a crisis point, begetting a vaccine crisis in that country as well. According to the authorities and the official data, Sri Lanka has obtained and secured a considerable amount of vaccines to continue the ongoing vaccination drive. However, the latest challenge, according to the health authorities, is getting the people to get vaccinated. A vox populi conducted by The Morning early this year, after the commencement of the first phase of the vaccination drive, confirmed that certain people refrained from getting vaccinated due to the fear of side effects and due to the confidence that their lifestyle and eating habits would strengthen their immunity system to protect against Covid-19. However, medical experts claim that newer variants, which are also more aggressive and transmissible, have the ability to affect any person, even those that are fully vaccinated, depending on the circumstances.  To address these misconceptions, the Health Ministry recently launched a survey to find out what reasons lead people to refrain from getting vaccinated. Speaking of this, Health Ministry Communications Director, Public Health Services Deputy Director General, and Disaster Preparedness and Response Division Head Dr. Hemantha Herath told The Morning early this month that preliminary surveys are being conducted to identify the factors hindering people from getting vaccinated. Dr. Herath noted that the results so far show that in addition to unwillingness and misconceptions regarding vaccination, there are also practical issues hindering people’s active participation in the vaccination drive.  According to the Health Ministry, even though the Government is not planning on making it mandatory for people to get vaccinated, nor is it planning to take legal action against those who refuse to get vaccinated, there is a need to encourage and educate the people to address any misconceptions they may have.  This survey was conducted in a context where President Gotabaya Rajapaksa too had instructed the relevant officials to conduct an islandwide survey to find out who has not taken the vaccine despite being eligible. The importance of awareness raising was also highlighted by Sri Jayewardenepura University Faculty of Medical Science Department of Immunology and Molecular Medicine Prof. Neelika Malavige, who on 22 August said that even though getting vaccinated should be a decision that needs to be taken at the individual level, people would not refuse it if they were made aware of the vaccines and their benefits. In a new development, it was recently reported that some people have started rejecting vaccines other than those manufactured in Europe and the US, such as the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine and the Moderna vaccine. This comes in a context where some European countries have expressed hesitance to allow people vaccinated with Chinese, Indian, and Russian-made vaccines to enter their countries. In response, Dr. Herath stressed that all types of vaccines that are being administered in Sri Lanka have been approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as well as the local drug regulator, the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA). He noted that no vaccine is special, and that all vaccines provide protection against Covid-19. Thus, taking into consideration the prevailing situation, people should pay attention to being inoculated with some type of vaccine, regardless of its name. It is also important to raise awareness about the efficacy of the vaccines. None of the vaccines that are currently in use provide 100% protection, and this fact has been highlighted by medical experts including the WHO since the beginning of the manufacture of the vaccines. According to WHO experts, there are different levels of immunity provided by these vaccines. Adding that when it comes to the efficacy trials, the efficacy may range from 70-90%, they say, however, that in terms of just looking at the prevention of severe disease and hospitalisation, they are all very good, and are over 90% effective. Furthermore, according to some studies, especially those conducted in the US, over 90% of the people who succumb to Covid-19 are unvaccinated – which shows what the vaccine can do, even though it does not provide 100% protection. Opposition and doubts As seen in many other countries, there is a certain resistance to and doubts about the effectiveness of the vaccine as well as the process of vaccination as a solution to the pandemic. However, the lack of awareness and misconceptions are not the only reasons that some parties advocate against vaccination. There is also a fundamental rights aspect to this matter, which has a lot to do with bodily autonomy and physical integrity. In a new development, a well-known group called the Sinhala Ravaya sought the Supreme Court’s (SC) assistance against the Government directing the people to get vaccinated. According to a statement issued by the said group, a fundamental rights (FR) petition has been filed in the SC, and if the SC decides to hear the petition, this would be the first time that legal action was taken with regard to the Covid-19 management efforts, especially vaccination. On 16 August, the group lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) claiming that the people should be given the right to decide whether or not to get vaccinated. Their main argument was that making vaccination mandatory is a violation of human rights, as it deprives people of the freedom to make such a decision.  The statement stressed that the people should have the right to make their own decision as to whether to get vaccinated, and also the right to adopt an arbitrary method of survival. Adding that the ability to make such decisions is a fundamental right, the group alleged that the Government has violated that right. The group observed that the vaccination process should be continued in a manner that is acceptable to society, giving citizens the freedom to accept or refuse the vaccine, and to opt for alternative treatment methods in the event a person refuses to get vaccinated. They also opposed the Government’s plan to make proof of vaccination, or a vaccination card, mandatory to visit public places with effect from 15 September, a move the health authorities said would help reduce community spread by limiting the number of unvaccinated people roaming in public places, while encouraging the people to get vaccinated to be able to access public places. Though this plan was initially applicable only to those over the age of 30, the health authorities later said that other age groups too would be included, if those age groups have been declared eligible to get vaccinated by the time this new regulation comes into effect. Speaking about it, Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said: “If the people are trying to abstain from getting vaccinated due to various reasons, we need to give them some kind of incentive or entice them. As a way of doing that, we will introduce something like an (electronic) card, which will have information about the vaccination status embedded in it, or a barcode that helps check that information. This will be applicable when a person has taken both doses of the vaccine, and contain information about a booster third dose as well, if we decide to administer such a vaccine in the near future. It is not harassment, even though some might try to interpret it as such.”  Moreover, some medical professionals have expressed doubts about relying on the vaccination programme to end the pandemic, or viewing it as a long-term solution. Claiming that vaccination is a good short-term solution to manage the pandemic, the Government Medical Officers’ Forum (GMOF) opined that even though vaccination is of utmost importance, the priority of the health authorities and the Government should be ridding the country of the presence of the virus and preventing further infections. Speaking to The Morning, GMOF President Dr. Rukshan Bellana said: “If Covid-19 is a virus that remains without mutating, vaccination can actually turn out to be very effective. But unfortunately, we already know that this virus mutates. The authorities have put a lot of faith in the mass vaccination of the population; however, even though mass vaccination can provide immunity to a particular subtype of the virus, we don’t know whether the virus would respond to the vaccine in the event of a mutation. “The main focus of the vaccination is to achieve herd immunity or immunity for the entire population; however, that is not going to become a reality if there are constant mutations. Therefore, the focus needs to be on getting rid of the presence of the virus from society, and we need to understand that it can only happen through a lockdown.” However, research and experts reveal that the existing vaccines are, for the most part, effective against the various mutated strains of the virus’ variants. Minister Rambukwella has pointed out the importance of vaccinating all citizens, and that the Government has to find a way to entice the people to get vaccinated. He told The Morning last week that health authorities around the world who are concerned about the virus have also advised to do so, and that according to them, the only way out of the pandemic is vaccination. He noted that even though there are certain other precautionary measures, such as hygiene-related measures, that the people have to take, at the end of the day, vaccination is the priority. Amidst doubts and discussions both for and against vaccination, a majority of the people unanimously accept that vaccination is currently the best short-term solution to protect against Covid-19. However, due to the misconceptions and lack of awareness among the public, the vaccination drive has not been able to reach out to all those eligible to get vaccinated under the prescribed age and from at risk groups. Raising awareness is the most effective approach that can be adopted to encourage these people to get vaccinated, and it should be done fast, as Sri Lanka is already recording the highest number of deaths per million people in the South Asian region.


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