Johannesburg - Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla and the government has been warned against reviving the vaccination campaign.
Anti-vaccine groups slammed Phaahla’s decision to reinvigorate the national Covid-19 vaccination campaign, saying he illustrated “great” ignorance when he said vaccination remains the best way to build up immunity against Covid-19. Phaahla made his announcement on Tuesday.
Although Phaahla said no restrictions would be put in place, he said President Cyril Ramaphosa and the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) approved reinvigorating the vaccination campaign and ramping up Covid-19 testing. This came after the case of a new Omicron sub-variant, XBB.1.5, was identified in the country last week.
“Our vaccination ministerial advisory committee will soon make adjustments to qualification for the booster (vaccination) per age and also the timelines between the boosters. The remake is looking at including in the boosters not only people over 50 but also all adults over 18 years of age. Vaccination remains the bedrock to protect against any variant or sub-variant of Covid-19 and not travel restrictions or any new restrictions at this stage,” said Phaahla.
Nick Hudson, the co-founder of PANDA (Pandemic Data Analytics), who has been challenging the Covid-19 narrative and statistics said vaccines do not provide immunity against Covid-19. He said the theory that vaccines protect against severe illness and death looks very “anaemic”.
“The jab programme should be suspended in its entirety. There is now abundant evidence of multiple manipulations in the phase III Pfizer study, upon which the entire programme was substantially predicted,” said Hudson.
He said there are also clear signals of harm that in more sensible times would have resulted in the immediate termination of the programmes.
“Recently leaked video material from the Israeli ministry of health invalidates the other great pillar upon which the ‘safe & effective’ narrative was built. South Africans have built up significant natural immunity through very high levels of past infection, and there is no significant threat posed by Covid-19. It is time to move on,” Hudson said.
Public interest organisation Sakeliga has this week instructed their legal team to prepare an application to have Cogta Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma jailed for contempt of court. This was after Dlamini Zuma refused to comply with a court order to provide it with documentation relating to the government’s Covid-19 response and instead sent them thousands of pages of documents that were already in the public domain.
Hudson said Phaahla was also venturing into the same domain.
“We should be moving on from Covid-19, except for analysing how and why South Africa’s policy response originated, how our institutions of public health have been captured by the pharmaceutical complex, and prosecuting those responsible for this national disgrace. Minister Dlamini Zuma is in contempt of court with respect to Sakeliga’s legal action against her, after she refused them access to documentation explaining lockdown regulations and decisions to keep the State of Disaster in place. We all know that this is because she had no good basis for her actions. Dr Phaahla is venturing into precisely the same domain,” said Hudson.
Human rights activist and lawyer Schalk van der Merwe who took the government to the court over mandatory vaccination said he doesn’t have a problem with the government's decision, it should be a person’s choice whether to take a jab or not. Van der Merwe said he continues to fight should people be compelled to take vaccines.
“I have no problem with the government's decision but I am against forced vaccination because I understand that it must remain the choice of a person to vaccinate or not. In fact, it is their right to not vaccinate,” he said.
South Africa National Christian Forum (SANCF) Bishop Marothi Mashashane said they don’t have any problem with the government reviving the vaccination campaign, but they will not agree to any policy that makes vaccination compulsory.
“We are not anti-vaccine but we firmly oppose mandatory it. We will also oppose any attempt of lockdown to church assemblies should it come. Nobody should have his rights limited when it comes to vaccinations. As we did before, we will challenge any employer who forces or threaten employees who choose not to take vaccinations based on their belief system or any other reason for that matter,” said Mashashane.
Dr Angelique Coetzee, a chair of the health committee of the South African Business Confederation said that currently, there is no need for the public to panic about the XBB.1.5 sub-variant, saying it is not dangerous at this stage.
“But the fact about Omicron and Omicron sub-variant seem to be very fast spreading, but not very dangerous. They are very contagious but they give mild disease. I think in South Africa because we had the Delta and Omicron waves, people will anti-bodies. For now, this is not a very dangerous variant,” she said.
Medical scientist at the University of Pretoria Professor Tivani Mashamba-Thompson said although there is no evidence that XBB.1.5 sub-variant was more virulent or dangerous than other Omicron lineages, it was likely to cause another Covid-19 wave.
“However, due to the high transmission rate that has been demonstrated by XBB 1.5, this sub-lineage is likely to be the cause of another Covid-19 wave.”
Mashamba-Thompson said the most response was to be more vigilant and follow the Covid-19 measures that “we have been following during the previous year”.