We’re sure you’ve heard plenty of conspiracy theories about COVID-19, and of course, the vaccine, which came about within a span of less than a year.
One of them being anti-vaxxers and members of the general public alike, encouraging talk of world governments just trying to find a way to implant a chip or tracking device inside us.
But rest assured, that’s not the case!
Photo via AFP
The National Cancer Society of Malaysia (NCSM) has dismissed such rumours, and assured that Malaysians are not being used as “guinea pigs” for the vaccine.
Many Malaysians have this impression just because our government has agreed to receive COVID-19 vaccines from various manufacturers, sparking concerns that our citizens will be the “trial run” to see which vaccine works best.
NCSM general manager Dr M. Murallitharan said any production of vaccines or drugs would also have to go through multiple phases of trials to ensure they are safe for use.
He explained that the COVID-19 vaccines could be produced in a very short time, partly because the technology to create these vaccines already exists.
For example, he said people had been taking the flu vaccines developed using the same technology and nobody had developed any terrible side effects all these years.
“Also, one of the very clear indications is how many people have taken the (Covid-19) vaccines. As of about a week ago, more than 30 million people globally have received doses of the three big kinds of vaccines, and this is amazing ... Pfizer (Pfizer-BioNTech), AstraZeneca, Moderna.
“We can see the data, and in terms of the huge group, we see very little side effects. We don’t see any kind of signal that shows any kind of danger. In case you are worried, 30 million people have shown that these vaccines are safe for use,” he told Bernama.
Dr Murallitharan also stressed on the
importance of achieving herd immunity.
“When one person has (contracted) COVID-19, they walk around and spread it to other people, but the person who is already vaccinated around them would not get the virus. So even if we have a small number of people who continue to have COVID-19, they won’t be able to spread the virus to other people,” he said.
He added that there’s
no need to be choosy about which vaccine to take, because whatever was approved by the authority would have been validated by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency for its safety and effectiveness.
Meanwhile, you can find out how to register for the programme
here.
And don’t forget to check out our other vaccine-related articles, as well as all things
COVID-19.
Please continue to follow SOPs and stay safe, people!