Dear District Governors
Vaccine Vacillations
Dear Rotary Leaders,
Ahead of our meeting on March 15, 2021, I am writing this to you to clarify the stand we have to take when we go around requesting people to get vaccinated.
We are not new to resistance when it comes to vaccination and we have successfully overcome those during our PolioPlus campaign. In that case the vaccine was available long before we took up the challenge and our volunteers were only required to know basic details about the only vaccine that was used to prevent polio, its efficacy and safety while being administered to the children.
What we found out when the Covid 19 vaccines were rolled out was that we need to have some knowledge about the different vaccines that seem to be promoted in India and in other parts of the world. Today, people sit at home watching web series reading everything in various media and forming their own opinion. In most instances the opinions are not based on any scientific results published or confirmed by WHO.
1. AstraZeneca (Covishield in India) is now being administered in India. WHO has rubbished claims about some after effects of the vaccine and certified it as an ‘excellent vaccine’ on March 12, 2021. Drug regulators around the world including European Medicine Agency and Germany’s own regulatory body for medicines have said that this vaccine is good.
2. Bharat Biotech (Covaxin in India) which is now being used in India is off the clinical trial mode and is authorized for emergency use on par with Covishield according to news released by NITI Aayog,
3. Pfizer-BioNTech is authorized by US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use (Emergency Use Authorisation) in USA for everyone over 16 years.
4. Moderna is also certified by US FDA for Emergency Use in USA for those above 18 years of age.
5. Sinovac (China) National Medical Products Administration in China is the regulator for approving this vaccine and they have granted approval for use of this vaccine.
6. Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) is supposed to be a single dose vaccine and is being tested in USA
These are the most commonly talked about vaccines by the people in India and our advocacy should be restricted to only the first two vaccines that have been authorized to be used in India. People also ask if it is safe to be given to children. Vaccine trials for adults involved many thousands of volunteers and for children’s trial the regulators are on the job. What we know now is children’s response to vaccines changes with age so safe doses will be worked out by the scientists.
What we have to emphasise is while the Covid cases are showing an increase recently, there is a reduction in the case fatality rate (CFR) and it now stands at 1.16%
The communication from the Government of Tamil Nadu to hotels, function halls and other places where public are allowed to come for political, cultural and other activities that they will be held accountable for violation of norms should be taken seriously by Rotarians and while setting an example themselves, they should advise people to exercise restraint while going to such events or completely avoid the events for prevention is better than cure.