Hon Mbondiah: The question is directed to the Minister of Health and Child Care.  Are there any measures being taken to ensure that the vaccine has no side effects and if so what compensatory plans are there?  Also is the vaccine effective against the newly discovered covid-19 variant.

THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE (HON. DR. MANGWIRO):  Any medicine or drug for that matter if it is given to a human being, might have side effects, but from the studies that have been done so far by the people who produce the vaccine, there seems to be very minimal reaction.  Like I said at the beginning, people might react.  We are ready to manage the side effects which can be just anaphylaxis reactions or localised reactions we can manage that one and it is very possible that it will not be very severe, it is something that we can take control of.

He also asked about the newly discovered South African variant.  I want to repeat that viruses mutate or they change their state for their own survival every time but there is no way a vaccine can be manufactured against each variant everyday because if you see the South African variant is only about two or three months old but in a few weeks more it will be changed.  

So what we normally do is these vaccines are manufactured for the generality of the virus but there is no way we can catch up to say everyday it mutates we make another one so the vaccine should be able to cover generally.  However, next time this variant- if people are supposed to make vaccine against it, it will take us another eight months to a year because vaccines are not made overnight.  So right now this South African variant is something that is there, we are aware of it and we are sure that people will be covered.  

 I am going to start again and say that people with cancer, HIV, diabetes mellitus and hypertension have weakened immunities.  We have no policy to say that they are not going to be vaccinated – actually, these people need the vaccine much more because they need to be protected.  These are the people we are saying, those with underlying conditions and the elderly – we are targeting people who we know have weak immunities.  The elderly have weakness in their immunity due to age – their marrow, reaction and production of antibodies is much slower now.

          So those people with those underlying conditions must get the vaccine so that they can fight the disease/virus better when they get it because their antibodies will have been enhanced from the vaccine.  We cannot discriminate and it is not correct to say that they are not going to be vaccinated.  It is clear that it is not correct – those must be just the ordinary rumours that always go round the mill.  In short, we are vaccinating them because they need the vaccine much more than those people whose immunities are okay.