No vaccine should evade public scrutiny

When I was a little boy, growing up in Port Elizabeth’s periurban Salisbury, where my dad Thamsanqa (bless his soul), owned a huge plot and a head of cattle, life was good.

Surrounded by a picturesque forest and lush green hills, I could not have wished for something better – until the apartheid Group Areas Act led to our undignified forceful removal, to be confined to a black township called Zwide.

Like other black families uprooted from the land of their ancestors, we found ourselves having to start a new life in a cheap, fourroomed house.

This was a far cry from Salisbury.

There, fresh vegetables and wild fruit were plucked from the fields and the forest, with milk from a family cow.

After school, one of the many pastimes I looked forward to was to accompany my father to the forest, where he would stop to dig out some roots and cut some tree leaves.

“What is this?” I would ask.

“Ngu-mhlonyana, yi-perepesi, ngum-qgeba (this is mhlonyana, perepesi and mgqeba), to be used when one of you suffers from flu or a cough,” he would explain.

Veteran trade union leader Zwelinzima Vavi has served as a testament of how someone can fully recover from Covid-19 using mhlonyana.

“Traditional herbs have been used by our people for hundreds of years – well before the existence of pharmacists,” remarked Vavi.

Who can disagree with that?

For our family, a combination of rural diet, a pollution-free atmosphere and herbs, which served as reliable medication against any disease, turned into good life.

Months into the globally ravaging Covid-19 pandemic, we have been thrown into an unknown future, with panic and desperation having set in.

While world leaders are now jostling to get a share of the vaccine for their citizens – a rare opportunity for some to shine – there seems to be a deafening silence on concerns about possible complications the jab might have on people.

The fact is that complications are associated with most western drugs and medicines – not African herbs.

I am no anti-vaccine crusader, given the fact that South Africa has just gone past the million mark of Covid-19 cases.

But in coming up with measures, it is equally important to vouch for the safety and efficacy of any vaccine.

Can we honestly vow that the Covid-19 vaccines will have no complications – especially in people living with comorbidities: HIV/Aids, high blood pressure and diabetes?

In an unprecedented move, the UK government has granted pharmaceutical giant Pfizer a legal indemnity, protecting it from being sued, and enabling the roll out of the Covid-19 vaccine in that country.

This means that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has not really passed the test by 100%.

Would you not be worried about being injected with a vaccine from a pharmaceutical company that had to seek indemnity – absolving it from any future complications?

The National Health Service staff providing the vaccine, as well as manufacturers of the drug, have also been protected.

With Ben Osborn, Pfizer’s UK managing director having refused to explain why the company needed an indemnity, details of the agreement have been kept under wraps.

While desperate times call for desperate measures, no vaccine should evade public scrutiny.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.