Adviser at the Minister of Health and a member of the National Vaccination Committee, Rafla Taj, announced that the goal is to vaccinate half of Tunisians until October, saying that it is possible to talk about collective immunity in Tunisia when 6 million people have received the vaccination against the Coronavirus.
Can Tunisia achieve this goal in light of the decline in the number of recipients of the second dose?
In this context, the head of the Scientific Committee for Vaccination and member of the Scientific Committee for Combating Corona, Riadh Daghfous, told “JDD Tunisie”, today, Thursday, September 16, 2021, that the vaccination of 50 percent of Tunisians until mid-October is theoretically possible, given the availability of the necessary quantities of doses.
Daghfous added that about 30 percent of Tunisians finished the vaccination process, whether by obtaining two doses or a single dose type (Johnson’s), or receiving a single dose after being infected with the virus, noting that about 50 percent received at least one dose, and therefore achieving the goal Set by the health authorities is not far off.
However, Dr. Daghfous added that it is currently necessary to work to raise the awareness of citizens to go to vaccination centers to obtain the second dose due to the observed inaction and reluctance due to a misunderstanding of this segment and its belief that it has become safe from infection, while obtaining one dose is not enough. to attain immunity.
He, even, pointed out the possibility of the emergence of a new wave or waves of the epidemic in the world and in Tunisia, which calls for caution and expediting the completion of vaccination operations to avoid the terrifying scenarios that Tunisia experienced by registering overcrowding in hospitals and intensive care departments with a lack of oxygen.
Reluctance?
The Scientific Committee , and through the frequent statements of its members, denounced the failure of a significant segment of those invited to receive the second dose of the anti-Corona vaccine to the date of their vaccination.
According to our interloccuor, the effectiveness of the first dose of the vaccine does not exceed 30% and becomes useless in the event that the second dose is not received, and does not protect those concerned from infection and the recording of serious symptoms that require shelter in the recovery departments.
He added that the frequent rumors about the ineffectiveness and safety of some types of vaccination caused some Tunisians to refrain from vaccination, while all available types were subjected to scientific experiments, which leaves no room for doubt about their safety.
Recallthat the Ministry of Health had announced on September 8 that two thirds of those invited to be vaccinated against Corona on Tuesday, September 7, missed the date of their vaccination, as only 31,000 registrants received the vaccination on the same day out of a total of more than 95,000 who were invited to attend the vaccination centers.
