Kenya Insights

Tag: Covid-19 vaccine

  • Bill Gates To Stand Trial For Allegedly Misleading The Public On Covid-19 Vaccines Safety

    Bill Gates To Stand Trial For Allegedly Misleading The Public On Covid-19 Vaccines Safety

    Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates is set to stand trial in the Netherlands for allegedly misleading the public about the safety of Covid-19 vaccines.

    In an epoch-making decision by a Dutch court on Wednesday, a ruling was made after seven plaintiffs claimed to have suffered adverse effects after being vaccinated during at the height of the pandemic.

    The complainants have sued the philanthropist, former Dutch Prime Minister and current NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, members of the Dutch government’s Covid-19 Outbreak Management Team, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, and the Dutch state itself.

    According to a Dutch publication, last year, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit naming Gates as one of the “experts” who made several claims about the Covid-19 experimental vaccines.

    The complainants argued that Gates, through his involvement with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum (WEF), was involved in a far-reaching agenda known as “The Great Reset Project.”

    The Great Reset initiative was an economic recovery plan drawn in June 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

    According to its proponents and initiators, it was meant to facilitate rebuilding after the devastation occasioned by the pandemic in a way that prioritises sustainable development.

    In the lawsuit, the complainants claimed that the agenda of the initiative included pushing for the uptake of unsafe vaccines.

    Hence, they were deceived into taking the injections which have had devastating effects on them.

    In 2020, Gates warned that developing a COVID-19 vaccine is only half the battle through his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

    “Several vaccines are in human trials, we aren’t sure which vaccines will be the most effective yet, and each requires unique technology to make. That means nations need to invest in many different kinds of manufacturing facilities now, knowing that some will never be used. Otherwise, we’ll waste months after the lab develops an immunisation, waiting for the right manufacturer to scale up”, Gates said in his article in 2020.

    The complainants further claimed that Gates made false statements about the vaccines promising that they would stop the virus transmission, prevent the illness, and eliminate the need for protective gear.

    The court documents revealed that one of the seven plaintiffs had reportedly died since the initial filing, leaving six others.

    Reports further indicate that Gates tried to stop the case but the court dismissed his attempts, citing jurisdiction issues as an American citizen.

    He has been ordered to pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees of $1,518.44 (sh195, 878) within 14 days or face additional penalties.

    With a new hearing scheduled for November 27, 2024, questions persist regarding the safety of the vaccine which was supplied to millions worldwide.

    In May 2022, one of the vaccine recipients, Gates announced that he had tested positive for the virus despite having been vaccinated and boosted.

    “I’ve tested positive for COVID. I’m experiencing mild symptoms and am following the experts’ advice by isolating until I’m healthy again,” the Microsoft founder wrote on his X account.

    The vaccine was being administered in booster batches, following expert advice due to the emergence of new Covid-19 variants.

    In the wake of the global pandemic in 2020, several vaccines including AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTtech, Johnson and Johnson, and Sinopharm vaccines were dispatched to Kenya.

    Due to the vaccine shortage amid the virus surge, the Pharmacy and Poisons Board approved the emergency use of vaccines such as Johnson and Johnson and Pfizer by August 2021.

    The Pfizer vaccine became available since it was largely donated to Kenya by the American government.

    Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine (2024-2025 Formula), has not been approved or licensed by the Food and Drug Administration but has been authorised under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to prevent Covid-19.

     At some point during the pandemic, the Kenyan government pushed citizens to get vaccinated or risk losing access to government services.

    For instance, mRNA Covid-19 vaccines were administered in the upper arm muscle or upper thigh, depending on the age of the person.

    In the process of complying with government directives, a large number of people were turned out for vaccination, with some individuals experiencing severe side effects.

    Addressing the media in 2021, the then Health Cabinet Secretary, Mutahi Kagwe, announced that at least 277 people had exhibited adverse effects from the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.

    Kagwe added that the effects varied from headaches, fever, nausea, fatigue, and excessive sweating and would clear within two days.

    In another similar report, the Kenya Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) then announced that 279 people had suffered from adverse effects after taking the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine.

    After the COVID-19 pandemic, efforts have been made to strengthen preparedness for future outbreaks on the continent.

    In October 2023, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledged a $40 million (Sh5.2 billion) investment to assist multiple African manufacturers in producing messenger RNA vaccines on the continent.

    The Messenger RNA vaccine technology gained prominence with the development of COVID-19 vaccines by companies like Pfizer and Moderna.

    “The idea is that many of the future vaccines, whether it’s for local diseases in Africa like Rift Valley or for global diseases like TB, mRNA looks like a very promising approach. And so it allows us to bring in lots of African capabilities to work on these vaccines, and then this can be scaled up,” explained Gates

    Quantoom Biosciences is to get $20 million to advance work on its mRNA manufacturing platform.

    The Senegal-based Institute Pasteur de Dakar (IPD) and Biovac in South Africa will get $5 million each, to buy the technology.

    The Gates Foundation will grant another US$10 million (Sh1.3 billion) to yet-to-be-named vaccine manufacturers in low and middle-income countries.

    This would not be the first time that the foundation has contributed towards the availability of vaccines in Africa.

    In the latest turn of events, it donated the polio vaccine which has also left citizens with some negative side effects.

    The Ministry of Health has since then disputed the unverified reports of adverse effects linked to the recent polio vaccination campaign.

    “The ministry has received reports of adverse effects arising from the polio vaccination campaign. We urge the public to refrain from spreading rumours until we release official information. Investigations are ongoing and we will issue a formal statement in due course,” stated the ministry on X.

    William ‘Bill’ Henry Gates, together with his ex-wife, Melinda, have emerged as major players in philanthropy, with a special focus on food and vaccine production and nutrition.

    However, Bill has been facing accusations, including theories over his alleged thoughts to ‘depopulate’ Africa, through control of food chains and vaccines.

    In 2010, the Gates Foundation Trust invested about $23 million in Monsanto, a company that has since been taken over by German chemical company, Bayer. Monsanto has footprints in the production of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), whose planned introduction in Kenya has been met with mixed feelings.

    The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is expected to open a regional office in Nairobi later this year, with a focus on healthcare, agriculture and ICT. However, the granting of special status to the foundation’s expatriate officials, including privileges and immunity from possible prosecution has raised eyebrows amongst a section of political and human rights activists.

  • COVID vaccine protection fades within six months – UK researchers

    COVID vaccine protection fades within six months – UK researchers

    (Reuters) – Protection against COVID-19 offered by two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines begins to fade within six months, underscoring the need for booster shots, according to researchers in Britain.

    After five to six months, the effectiveness of the Pfizer jab at preventing COVID-19 infection in the month after the second dose fell from 88% to 74%, an analysis of data collected in Britain’s ZOE COVID study showed.

    For the AstraZeneca vaccine, effectiveness fell from 77% to 67% after four to five months.

    The study was based on data from more than a million app users, comparing self-reported infections in vaccinated participants with cases in an unvaccinated control group.

    More data is needed in younger people because participants who had their shots up to six months ago tended to be elderly as that age group was prioritised when the shots were first approved, the study authors said.

    ZOE Ltd was founded three years ago to offer customised nutritional advice based on test kits. The company’s ZOE COVID Symptom Study app is a not-for-profit initiative in collaboration with King’s College London and funded by the Department of Health and Social Care.

    Under a worst-case future scenario, protection could fall below 50% for older people and healthcare workers by the winter, Tim Spector, ZOE Ltd co-founder and principal investigator for the study, said.

    “It’s bringing into focus this need for some action. We can’t just sit by and see the protectiveness slowly waning whilst cases are still high and the chance of infection still high as well,” Spector told BBC television.

    Britain and other European nations are planning for a COVID-19 vaccine booster campaign later this year after top vaccine advisers said it might be necessary to give third shots to the elderly and most vulnerable from September.

    The U.S. government is preparing to provide third booster doses starting in mid-September to Americans who had their initial course more than eight months ago. read more

    “This is a reminder that we cannot rely on vaccines alone to prevent the spread of COVID,” said Simon Clarke, Associate Professor in Cellular Microbiology at the University of Reading, who was not involved in the study.

    He cautioned that the results may have been distorted by the surge in overall cases in Britain in July.

    A separate British public health study found last week that protection from either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the AstraZeneca vaccine against the now prevalent Delta variant of the coronavirus weakens within three months. read more

    The Oxford University study found at the time that 90 days after a second shot of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine, their efficacy in preventing infections had slipped to 75% and 61% respectively. That was down from 85% and 68%, respectively, seen two weeks after a second dose.

  • New Virus Variant ‘Covid-22’ Could Be More Deadly Than Delta, Expert Warns

    New Virus Variant ‘Covid-22’ Could Be More Deadly Than Delta, Expert Warns

    An expert has warned that a new variant dubbed “Covid-22” could be more lethal than the world-dominating Delta.

    Professor Doctor Sai Reddy of the federal technology institute ETH Zurich, an immunologist, believes that combination of existing strains could result in a new and more dangerous phase of the pandemic.

    “It is very likely that a new variant will emerge and that we will no longer be able to rely on vaccinations alone,” immunologist Sai Reddy said.

    Prof Reddy told the German newspaper Blickthat Delta, dubbed COVID-21, was the most contagious variant of all.

    He cited coronavirus variants from South Africa (Beta) and Brazil (Gamma) that have mutated, allowing them to evade antibodies to some extent. Delta, on the other hand, is far more contagious but has yet to develop such mutations.

    “If Beta or Gamma becomes more contagious, or if Delta develops mutations, then we could be talking about a new phase of the pandemic,” said Reddy. “This would become the big problem of the coming year. Covid-22 could be even worse than what we are experiencing now.”

    Professor Doctor Sai Reddy noted that recent scientific findings show that the viral load of the Delta variant is so high that anyone who contracts it who is unvaccinated can become a “super-spreader.”

    “Since children under 12 cannot be vaccinated, they represent a large group of potential super-spreaders,” said Reddy.

    He noted that the Delta variant can avoid vaccinations due to its extremely high viral load.

    “We need to counter this with a high level of antibodies, and that is exactly what a third booster dose of vaccine does,” he explained.

  • Facebook to label posts in fight against Covid-19 misinformation

    Facebook to label posts in fight against Covid-19 misinformation

    Facebook has began labeling posts that discuss safety of shots and COVID-19 Vaccines after they were criticized by researchers and for allowing misinformation to be spread on its platform.

    The company said in a blog post that it is also launching a feature in the United States that will give people information about where to get the vaccines with the COVID-19 information section also added to its photo-sharing site Instagram.

    The move comes after claims and conspiracies about the vaccines proliferated on social media platforms during the pandemic but Facebook and Instagram have now moved in to tighten their policies after keyword searches found misinformation in its pages, groups and large accounts.

    The company’s Chief Product Officer Chris Cox revealed that they have taken viral false claims “very seriously” but added that there was “a huge gray area of people who have concerns…some of which some people would call misinformation and some of which other people would call doubt.”

    The best thing to do in that huge gray area is just to show up with authoritative information in a helpful way, be a part of the conversation and do it with health experts,” Cox added.

    The giant social media company clarified that it was labeling Facebook and Instagram posts that discuss the safety of COVID-19 vaccines with text saying the vaccines go through safety and effectiveness tests before approval.

    The company also revealed in its post that it has removed 2 million pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram after it expanded its list of banned false claims touching on the vaccines and the virus in February.

    Facebook had also implemented temporary measures including reducing the reach of content from users who still go ahead to share information that has been labeled as false by fact-checkers.

    Other social media platform like YouTube has its home section filled with a playlist of videos that promote vaccination and counteract vaccination misinformation from WHO while Twitter has a warning under posts with fake or misleading COVID-19 information.

  • Covid-19 Vaccine: Ministry yet to receive official procurement papers

    Covid-19 Vaccine: Ministry yet to receive official procurement papers

    The Ministry of Health still has scanty information about the real cost of  Covid AstraZeneca vaccine that arrived on Tuesday night will. Officials from the ministry have refuted looting claims adding that the cost can’t be as high as Sh760 ($7).

    They stated that the $7 was only a ‘working figure’ after was met mixed reactions since Kenyans the vaccine to cost $3 (Sh330) capped by Covax.