March 18, 2021
By Ilyasa Baa
Assuring Sierra Leoneans through a national broadcast after taking his symbolic first jab, the Minister of Information and Communications, Mohamed Rahman Swaray said President Bio has been fighting for fair share so that the country will receive more vaccines.
The Minister added that through the President’s diplomatic relationship, the country will soon receive forty five thousand doses from the African Union (AU).
He allayed the fears of the people noting that the vaccines are safe and efficacious. He confirmed that the President and government officials that took the jab are sound and healthy with no side effect noticed so far.
The Minister called for the continuation of the preventive measures so that the nation will once again defeat the scourge and see rapid development.
He referred to skeptics as unpatriotic parading unfounded narratives about the Astrozeca vaccines. He explained that both vaccines were administered to them safely defending that the controversial Astrozinica vaccine has been confirmed to be safe by Australia, Ghana, Thailand and other countries who are using it currently to prevent their citizens from the Coronavirus.
He said the country is lucky to have been amongst the poor countries that have secured some doses adding that the number of recipients will keep increasing as the vaccines jet into the country, steadily.
The Minister of Health and Sanitation, Dr. Austin Demby has said they are putting modalities in place to ensure that the other beneficiaries start getting their jab on Monday.
He underscored the point that government is using bi-lateral and multilateral approaches to acquire more vaccines for the benefit of Sierra Leoneans.
Meanwhile, there are mixed feelings with regards the vaccine and according to Mammy Yeama a tobacco seller in Kenema, “I won’t take the vaccine because I don’t have the virus.”
In a separate development, the European Union has in a release stated that the benefit of the Astrozinica vaccine outweighs the risk reported from a total of eleven countries including Germany.