SAMA urges doctors to unite to promote COVID-19 vaccines
16 August 2021
The South African Medical Association (SAMA) is dismayed at reports that some healthcare workers – including doctors – have discouraged patients from getting COVID-19 vaccinations based on doubts about vaccine safety and effectiveness.
“We wholly reject any doubts about the COVID-19 vaccines. There is high confidence among the scientific and medical community about the effectiveness and safety of the vaccines being rolled-out in South Africa, and they have also undergone safety and efficacy tests by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority. These are overwhelming endorsements of the vaccines, and there should be no doubt that every citizen must get them,” says Dr Angelique Coetzee, Chairperson of SAMA.
Dr Coetzee says the medical fraternity must be united in its commitment to ensure wider access to the vaccines. This, she says, must be based on spreading accurate, evidence-based information, dispelling any misinformation and overcoming vaccine hesitancy which threatens the goal of achieving optimal vaccine coverage. She says vaccine hesitancy arises from a combination of ignorance, misinformation, conspiracy theories, doubt of scientific evidence, concerns relating to medical histories, and cultural, religious, and philosophical beliefs.
“Vaccine hesitancy, however, should be condemned, and so should those who fuel it, particularly doctors who should know better. We share concerns with global and local scientists – and I use that term purposefully – that unfounded objections to COVID-19 vaccines deepen the public health crisis caused by the pandemic,” notes Dr Coetzee.