CAPE TOWN - “We are exhausted, and we need your help. Get vaccinated. Prevent the fourth wave.”
This was the impassioned plea from staff in the Covid-19 ICU at Tygerberg Hospital during a vaccination rally organised by Stellenbosch University’s (SU) Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) on Thursday.
Stressing the need to urgently reduce the burden on hospitals, Director of Clinical Services at Tygerberg Hospital, Dr Paul Ciapparelli, points to the proven effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines in preventing severe disease, hospitalisation, and therefore the need for ICU-level care.
“Vaccination will help to reduce the Covid-19 load and enables us to provide more care to our entire patient constituency. I urge all our staff at Tygerberg, as well as the general public, to please get vaccinated without delay – it’s by far our best weapon against the pandemic.”
Head of the FMHS Division of Medical Virology, Prof Wolfgang Preiser, dispelled fears around the safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines.
“People are sceptical about the speed at which the Covid-19 vaccine was developed, but in truth, it was based on decades of rigorous scientific research into vaccine development efforts for other diseases. Since its development, hundreds of millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered globally, revealing an excellent safety profile and very good protective effect against a severe and possibly fatal disease.”
He adds that he personally knows dozens of people who had severe Covid-19 and at least 20 who died from it – “and hundreds who had the vaccine with nothing more than perhaps a day or two of feeling a bit off”.
Fourth-year medical student Jessica Davies urged her fellow students to get vaccinated since all of them interact with patients in some way or another or are in close contact with other students who do.
“If we want to be responsible health care practitioners and model the behaviour we wish to see in our patients, our friends and our families, we need to be the first to set the example and get vaccinated.”
FMHS Dean Professor Jimmy Volmink called on all South Africans to wholeheartedly embrace all evidence-based measures that will decrease transmission of the virus and reduce the risk of serious disease and death.
“Covid-19 vaccination offers us the best hope of overcoming the current threat to our lives and livelihoods. Please do the responsible thing and get the shot.”
Cape Times