Picture: Michel Bega
Despite anecdotes and social media claims of multiple deaths and illnesses due to Covid-19 vaccinations, not a single claim has to date been paid from the R250-million taxpayer-funded Covid-19 Vaccine Injury No-Fault Compensation Scheme.
The scheme, administered by the health department, was unveiled by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in April last year, to compensate anyone who suffers a serious injury as a result of receiving the Covid vaccine.
This is due to the fact that not a single direct causal link could be positively established between anyone receiving the vaccine and those claiming to have been negatively affected.
The department is, however, yet to reveal the number of claims received against the scheme since the first vaccine was administered
“No one has been compensated yet because we have not found a direct link between the vaccine and the injuries suffered by anyone. We will soon commence looking at those identified cases this week,” health department spokesperson Foster Mohale said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced this week that the scheme will continue beyond the National State of Disaster and “will only be terminated once it has achieved its purpose”.
Of these, a total of 24.932,469 were Pfizer-BioNTech doses, with 4,323 total adverse events or side effects reported.
Out of the total 7.314,457 Johnson & Johnson doses administered during the same period, there were 1,243 adverse effects reported.
During this period, SAHPRA and NISEC received 194 reports of death (0.00060%) among people who received Covid vaccines.
According to SAHPRA, 33 cases of the total death reports received among people who received Covid vaccines were being investigated, while the 161 have been investigated and causality assessed.
The causality assessment results revealed that 139 cases were found to be coincidental, 85 of which had Covid-19 disease and 3 cases were breakthrough infections, while 22 cases were unclassifiable due to inadequate information.
Most adverse events for Covid vaccines, according to SAHPRA, were non-serious and mild; such as mild headaches, pain and redness at the injection site, slight fever, and resolved within the first 2-3 days after vaccination.
Not all suspected adverse events, whether minor or serious, are caused by the vaccine and could be coincidental.
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