By Grace Kuria
South Africa’s National Immunization Safety Expert Committee (NISEC) Chairperson, Professor Hannelie Meyer has announced that no South African has died from the COVID-19 vaccine jab.
This even as the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) continues to investigate the safety of vaccines.
Meyer said SAHPRA and NISEC received 88 reports of death among those who have received a COVID-19 vaccine between May 17 and August 31 this year.
According to her, this accounts for 0.0007 percent out of the 12,166,043 that had been administered as of the end of August.
Meanwhile, 46 reports are still under investigation, while 40 have been examined and causality assessed.
“Amongst the 40 that have been causality assessed, none of those were related to any of the COVID-19 vaccines we are using in South Africa.”
Causality assessment is defined as a procedure to determine if there is a cause-and-effect relationship between medicine and the occurrence of an adverse event, with no other factor intervening in the process.
However, Meyer said 13 of them died due to COVID-19 disease.
“So, these people died because of COVID-19. They had already incubated COVID-19 at the time of vaccination or contracted COVID-19 shortly after being vaccinated before they could mount an adequate immune response.”
Meanwhile, Meyer told the public that the non-COVID-19 related deaths happened “coincidentally” after being jabbed.
According to the Professor, the majority of them had multiple comorbidities including hypertension, heart disease, tuberculosis, obesity and so on.
She has assured citizens that all the data is considered before the experts before any conclusion.
(With input from SA Gov News)