By Binta Jaiteh
Buba Darboe, programme manager at the Ministry of Health has confirmed that The Gambia is safe and secured to go ahead with the Covax of AstraZeneca vaccine.
“The results we have are safe and there is a technical body from the Ministry of Health including senior officials that advised the country on what to do. There are lots of vaccines produced at the global level but the country decides to go in for the AstraZeneca vaccine based on expert’s opinion,” he said
“We believe that with this vaccine we will eliminate the dreadful virus, we are seeking your support because the government can never do it alone and we have to work with both private, public companies, NGOs and civil societies,” he added.
According to him, already there are lots of conspiracies theories filtering around the media and the population, especially in our social media platforms.
He explained that “people have the reconceive mind that these vaccines are harmful but just to say we have experts in this country who have embarking on vaccination programs adding that for many years and Gambia is one of the countries that has been recognize as best country when it comes to immunization programs.”
Mr Darboe went on that the experts can never bring harmful things in our country and they are guided both nationally and internationally.
“We have done a lot as far as response is concern, the ministry of health in partnership with all stakeholders; Institution is committed in providing financial support to end this pandemic. Our prayers is that when shall we end this. Vaccination is one of the strategies measures to end this pandemic a lot of vaccine were developed and rigorously tested and proven to be safe. We have meeting with other institution based on how we think on this agenda and also National Assembly members because we feel they are critical when it comes to information dissemination and is part of the holistic consultation,” he explained in detail.
He added that The Gambia through consultation with key institutions all over the world, also try to rollout the same vaccination program and through the Covax facility we secured thirty thousand doses of AstraZeneca vaccines in the country and it has been launched.
