AstraZeneca Vaccine Saga: Ghanaians Being Primed For Potential Vaccine Injuries

Presidential advisor on Health Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare claims Ghanaians will have to pray so that the newly received AstraZeneca vaccine will become “even more effective”.

“We will pray over the vaccines so that they become even more effective; through the prayers, Ghana could become one of the first countries to defeat COVID-19 through the vaccination,” he told Accra-based Okay FM in an interview monitored by Whatsup News.

Curiously, President Akufo Addo’s health advisor is seeking to resort to prayer to make the vaccine more effective, while at the same time, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is anticipating potential vaccine injuries in Ghana and has thus announced that Ghana and 92 other countries will benefit from a vaccine compensation plan by those who may suffer adverse side effects.

The Programme Manager for the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, also confirmed the WHO promise to provide compensation for potential vaccine injuries in Ghana.

In an interview, he said Ghana was part of the COVAX facility and “certainly part of the compensation system by extension.”

“By providing a no-fault lump-sum compensation in full and final settlement of any claims, the COVAX programme aims to significantly reduce the need for recourse to the law courts, a potentially lengthy and costly process,” read a statement from WHO.

While Ghanaian officials are banking total optimism in the AstraZeneca vaccines that were recently supplied to Ghana “free-of-charge” by the GAVI Vaccine Alliance, many countries are rejecting the vaccine.

France, Germany, Sweden, Austria and Poland have expressed reluctance in injecting people older than 65 years of age with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine because of concerns over its efficacy, Ghana has lined up its elderly, including President Akufo Addo as the first recipients of the just-delivered AstraZeneca Vaccine to Ghana.

The German Chancellor has stated categorically that she will not take the AstraZeneca vaccine because she is “too old” at 66. Yet, in Ghana, officials are pushing the 76-year-old Ghanaian President to take the first jab of the disputed AstraZeneca vaccine.

In South Africa, deployment of AstraZeneca has been halted altogether after a study revealed that its efficacy level is way lower than advertised. In some cases, it is lower than 10%, and the efficacy rate that ordinary herbal concoctions found in most kitchens can achieve.

Research by Whatsup News shows that Between April 23 and Nov 4, 2020, some 11,000 participants were covered in a study to determine the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but only a paltry 660 of the participants were around 60 years old and above. The efficacy rate of the vaccine turned out to be approximately 62%, the lowest in all the current vaccines developed for treating COVID-19 worldwide.

Because of the low numbers, the authors of the study concluded that the vaccine’s efficacy in the elderly could not be determined

A similar study to test the efficacy of a rival vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine enrolled some 38,000 participants and there was a sizeable sample size of the elderly of some 16,000 who were 55 years old and over.

Checks by Whatsup News from the database of the National Vaccine Information Centre, a non-governmental organisation in the USA shows that it some 1,095 people have died some days after getting COVID-19 vaccines from particularly Pfizer/Biontech and Moderna.

The data was pulled from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting (VAERS) System, is a United States program for vaccine safety, co-managed by the U.S. Centre for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.

Although VAERS does not prove causality, it is a telling database that requires health officials and individuals to report adverse effects experienced shortly after taking a vaccine.