The lies that are more dangerous than a vaccine

During my time working for UNICEF, I saw many heartbreaking tragedies. However, none upset me quite as much as babies and children dying painful deaths caused by preventable childhood diseases like mumps or measles. These babies died because their parents did not have access to vaccines or declined to have their children vaccinated because they were told that vaccines were an attempt by the West to kill them. Of course, children in the West rarely die from these diseases, because they are vaccinated.  

I have been extremely concerned by the growth of the anti-COVID 19 vaccine narrative on social media – which seemed to have also played a role in the Chief Justice’s recent utterances on the subject.

These alarmist theories differ, but all seem to have one underlying narrative, namely that the COVID-19 vaccine is a conspiracy by people in the West to depopulate Africa, by presumably killing African people through this vaccine.

This argument is fueled by videos from a few medical doctors (mostly in America) claiming that the mRNA technology used by the Pfizer vaccine, will fundamentally alter our DNA. Some even argue that microchips will be implanted without our consent during vaccination which would track all our movements and have access to all our personal data.  

Let me be clear: It is crucial that all medical inventions including the COVID-19 vaccines get tested properly before they are rolled out. But it also needs to be said that since the Thalidomide scandal in the 1950s (where an untested sedative was given to pregnant mothers resulting in severe abnormalities in babies), we have never seen any large-scale medical disasters due to insufficient testing. The rules and procedures to get medicines and vaccines approved have continuously been tightened around the globe.

I’m not a virologist or immunologist and therefore do not want to argue about the science behind these vaccines.

But I would like to put the following to those spreading this conspiracy theory:

Firstly: There is not only one vaccine – in fact, there are numerous vaccines being developed in different countries and they do not all use the same technology.

For example, the mRNA technology (which seems to upset people most) is used in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. It is, however, not being used in the Oxford and Sputnik vaccines which use technology similar to those in the vaccines we all got as children.

The Pfizer mRNA vaccine needs to be kept at extremely low temperatures (minus 70 degrees Celsius), which poses a challenge even for the most sophisticated countries. Clearly, it is not best suited for South Africa or for that matter any developing nation. This may partially explain why South Africa has been slow to reserve or pre-order this vaccine. So, the mRNA vaccine from Pfizer (which has caused all this concern), would most probably never even be used in South Africa and Africa in general.

Secondly: The vaccines have largely been tested in Europe and America on white Westerners (often medical workers). So, if the intention is to depopulate Africa, why on earth would they test (which is the most dangerous phase) on Europeans?

Even more importantly, if these vaccines use dangerous technologies intended to depopulate Africa, why would America, Canada, and Europe scramble to buy all the available Pfizer vaccines – often more dosages than their total population?

Only in the UK and Europe, Russia, and America have they started to vaccinate. At best, it will be months before we have access to vaccines in Africa. So, if anything is going to go wrong, it would happen in Europe and America first - not here. So surely that would defeat any attempt to kill off Africans?

It seems to me that there are much bigger dangers than those peddled by these conspiracy theories.

Firstly, there is a real risk that the African and developing world won’t be able to afford sufficient quantities of any vaccine. It is estimated that South Africa would have needed somewhere in the order of R2 156 934 840 (at commercial prices) to sufficiently vaccinate our population. Through the Covax initiative, there has been agreement that the poorer nations will pay a subsidised price. The challenge is now to secure enough dosages at these subsidised prices, and even then, it will still cost a fortune.

Secondly, if these conspiracy theories continue to grow, many people might decline to get immunised and thus the virus will continue to rage in South Africa and Africa. Not only will people in Africa continue to die and their economies suffer, but it is possible that the rest of the world would ban people travelling from African countries. Thus the world would move on, while Africa would (again) be left behind.

In UNICEF I saw the suffering caused by misinformation around vaccinations.

Yes, we do have to be sure that any vaccine is tested properly.

 However, if we care about the lives of Africans, we should firmly discourage all untruths that would result in people declining a vaccine that could save not only their own lives but those of others they come in contact with.