Laiba Hassan

There are many misconception regarding Covid-19 vaccines not only in Pakistan but also in neighboring India and rest of the world as well.

As the vaccines started to roll out for public in late 2020, there was great deal of fear regarding their adverse affects among general public. The spread of various rumors on social media regarding also caused vaccine hesitancy among people.

One of the rumors was that the Covid-19 vaccines cause cardiovascular diseases and blood clots lead to death.

In addition to this, pictures of people were shared on social media, who had died due to the same condition.

Razia, 27, a Facebook user said that when she heard about the blood clotting due to the Covid-19 vaccines on Facebook and shared WhatsApp groups of her friends. “I wrote a post stating that the Covid-19 vaccines were lethal to stop my friends from getting their jabs,” she said.

Ms Razia said that later she realized that all these reports were just rumors which should not have believed. “We often see rumors on social media which we believe and spread to other people,” she said. Besides, she said that they should not spread such reports without verification.

On the other hand, Imran Ali, 25 a resident of Dera Ismail Khan who refused to take vaccine due to such rumors said that his mother was a heart patient. Mr Ali said that after his mother suffered a heatstroke and did not vaccinate her due to the rumors spread regarding ill effects of the vaccine.

However, Dr Sanaullah, a cardiologist at the Khyber Teaching Hospital said that there were some reports regarding blood clotting due to the use of Astra Zeneca vaccine. However, he added that SinoVac and Sinopharm vaccines do not cause any ill effect.

He said that these vaccines would not even cause harm to heart patients and save them from contracting Covid-19.

 

 

Dr Sana said that Covid-19 vaccines also pass through the same steps like any other vaccine.

“The Covid-19 vaccine was first developed in a laboratory and afterwards gone through clinical trials which were monitored closely,” he said.

In addition to this, he said that in clinical trials vaccine efficacy and safety are checked. “Each Covid-19 vaccine was tested on thousands of people of different genders, age, races and nationalities who had volunteered for clinical trials,” he said.

On the other hand, more than 100 million Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in Pakistan. In addition to this, thousands of people of have received both of their doses. Besides, many others have received their first and boosters doses as well.

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