Health & Environ

Vaccines have been around for years and it is no secret that they have saved millions of humans from death, debilitation, and disfigurement. Thanks to vaccinations, young people today may not even know about diseases such as tetanus, polio, smallpox, measles, and yellow fever.

History will judge the stewards of Tanzania’s Fifth Republic harshly for their imprudent response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since Dar-es-Salam announced its first confirmed case of coronavirus on March 16, 2020, its leadership has stridently walked a populist path.

Like a creeping thief in the night, it finally knocked at my door, unannounced, un-welcomed.

When coronavirus (COVID-19) first appeared, Africans expressed variable opinions about its origin, purpose, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Some of the opinions, speculations, theories, and beliefs were obviously false, misleading, truthful, or indeterminate. We are now 10 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, though the situation is constantly changing, it is time to assess where some of these views about the pandemic stand today.

A great piece of news was announced last month by the World Health Organization that wild type polio has been wiped out in Africa, thanks to a vaccine. However, it still remains in some isolated parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan where public health officials fight the polio virus against inbred conservative peoples, some of whom  are prepared to kill the health workers on the mistaken belief that they are the ones spreading the disease.

COVID-19 first appeared early December 2019 as a mysterious respiratory disease in Wuhan Province China. By December 20, 2019, there were 60 confirmed cases. It did not attract much world attention and was dismissed as another flu that would soon disappear.

Vaccination has become a question of to be or not to be. Parents worry about it, not just because of the prick their babies must endure but because without vaccination certificates, their children may not attend school. Adults are also not free of vaccination requirements because vaccines such as yellow fever and cholera may be required for international travel.

Sometime ago, I accompanied my sister to a pediatrician’s office, for the first of many vaccination appointments for her twin 8-week old girls. Fortunately for my sister, the nightmare ended after a few pokes of the needle and a few throaty bawls of protest. Sadly, not every parent’s ordeal ends the same way. Each day, parents around the world take their children on this routine with faith that this will protect their children against deadly and potentially life-threatening infections. But what if this very tool that is intended to protect becomes a lethal source of disability?