WHEN COVID-19 came to human knowledge in late 2019, our immediate response to this new unknown was a response of fear and censor. The Chinese government refused to believe in the advent of a virus which could become the cause of a deadly infectious disease and tried to conceal any news of it. This unbelief was reflected in some people in Europe and the US, despite media reports of widespread infections around them. A couple of months later, after the first few cases of COVID-19 were reported in Nigeria, Nigerians exhibited the same unbelief. A lockdown order was implemented and safety health measures such as donning face masks in public were endorsed but a larger cut of the population cried out against the inconvenience of these restrictive regulations. We, Lagosians especially, wanted to go on about our lives as usual and even questioned why the government could not find another solution to the possible spread of this COVID-19. Finally, a vaccine was formulated —quite a few different types of vaccines actually. But, we are faced with the same problem: unbelief. Many of the residents along the Ikotun-Idimu Road, most of my neighbours, still feel that the COVID-19 pandemic in Lagos is one big hoax. This has fueled an obstinate opposition to the COVID-19 Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines which arrived on Tuesday, the 2nd of March 2021.
Vaccines have always been praised as one of the most significant innovations in the fight against epidemics and pandemics, human survival up till the 21st century can be argued to be partly owed to the development of vaccines against rather fatal infectious diseases like the smallpox. However, the positive history of vaccination is yet to convince everyone as many still have misgivings. This vaccinophobia which is widespread in Lagos is not peculiar to Lagos, several people in other parts of Nigeria and the world are choosing not to use vaccines for various reasons. There are many stories, myths, and conspiracy theories about vaccines and their implications. In the past two decades numerous anti-vaccination groups have been formed, spreading disparaging remarks on vaccines and influencing the decision of parents to steer away from child vaccination procedures. At a time when polio has been said to be eradicated in Nigeria —thanks to decades of targeted vaccination— by the World Health Organization, some infectious diseases are resurfacing in parts of the world where they had been thought to be suppressed. Recurrent cases of measles have appeared in the United States in the past few years and the children affected by these new outbreaks were denied measles vaccine by their parents.
The criticism of vaccination is as old as vaccines too. The first public use of vaccination in the early 19th century was opposed by some people on religious and health grounds. Because the active agents of smallpox vaccines were derived from cowpox blisters, it was deemed an unsanitary and unholy procedure. These sanitary and religious concerns were made widespread so that more people feared subjecting themselves to the vaccines until they were truly exposed to the deadly smallpox. More recently, vaccines have been believed to cause some neurological and physiological disorders in children. Although these claims have been debunked and scientifically disproved, many parents still hold on tightly to the myths of the dangers of vaccination in babies.
There is a registration website for us. You can quickly sign yourself and your family up for the COVID-19 vaccine now, Daddy Warriz.
No ó! We’re not doing. He responds as if he was invited to commit a crime.
Why not?
It is only people who are sick that should take it.
Among the many reasons for vaccine opposition, ignorance must be at the top of the list. Most people do not know what a vaccine really is. The landlord I spoke with has probably taught his family and neighbours that vaccines are only used for those who are terribly sick with the corona virus disease. In fact, vaccines are created firstly for preventive measures —to help those who have not been sick but risk being exposed to infection to become resistant to the said infection. Others simply refuse to get vaccinated because they believe it is against their religious beliefs. Albeit many religions accept vaccination as a necessary public health procedure, some religious denominations have labeled a couple of medical practices such as blood transfusion and vaccination as unacceptable. This has forced many adherents to such religious sects to ignore the facts about vaccines.
Beyond whatever divine judgement there is on vaccination, some people strongly believe that a good hygiene and sanitary precautions are enough to keep infectious diseases away. If you are always clean, you shouldn’t catch the germ. But this is not the case. We have become better at sanitation and our hygiene has never been better but the human race keeps facing one new epidemic every other decade. Proper sanitation is not enough to prevent recurring infectious diseases such as the influenza. No infectious disease is gone for long when a new generation is not vaccinated against it, polio can re-emerge in Lagos within two decades if we stop vaccinating some of our newborn children against polio today (even though we have technically eradicated the disease).
I will not partake in this COVID-19 vaccination, at least not yet. A secondary school teacher tells me. She ominously adds: Let us see what happens to those who take it in the next ten years.
The vaccine will still make you sick, just not very sick. Her colleague chips in.
Many a Nigerian share this same view. Some people think the vaccine is going to make you sick. Others are being told that it will not grant anyone immunity, that it will only make the symptoms of the disease less severe if one is exposed to it. These misconceptions are spreading indiscriminately and, in a country where trust is costlier than precious stones, people cannot help but be as skeptical as usual. More older people declined the invitation to take the vaccine, it would seem that our elderly folk are more susceptible to conspiracy theories than their younger counterparts. The elderly school teacher stood her ground on being wary of the vaccine even after we had looked through the reports of the efficacy of the vaccines together. She would probably never get a shot in the next ten years, or for the rest of her life, even after the vaccination proves to be 100% safe. There are ridiculous stories about sinister schemes, bio warfare, an antichrist, and the list goes on. It may not look like it but we do crave a taste of some uncertain apocalyptic reality —any one anyhow, the novels and movies don’t do it for us anymore.
Only one in five persons casually admitted that she has registered and intends to get vaccinated. One in five, that’s 20% of our population who are certainly ready for the COVID-19 vaccine. This implies that no less than 50% of Lagosians definitely harbour anti-vaccination sentiments, and it could be worse around the country. We are in the early days of distributing the COVID-19 vaccine but we must be elaborate with our public health education. The misinformation and controversies on the COVID-19 vaccines are going ballistic! The federal government also needs to work more on its PR, it sucks. Honestly, there has been an upward turn in the distrust of government. Too many people blame the government for every single thing they are going through in Nigeria, they eventually become intolerant of any decision made by the government to an extent of illogicality. We had complained about how badly the COVID-19 situation in Nigeria was handled last year and criticized the government for not being able to support indigenous research facilities in developing a drug or vaccine against COVID-19. A vaccine is finally here and some of us still cannot provide a better excuse other than our dissatisfaction and distrust in the government. This is really difficult to understand. Most of the Nigerian population has been vaccinated against polio, rubella, and measles in infancy, we should have the nerve to get vaccinated as adults.
What if the vaccine gets tampered with before they administer it?
Vaccines are highly secure low-risk drugs and those who are advised to avoid vaccination procedures are people with certain allergic reactions or contraindications. The odds that a perfectly sealed vaccine will be contaminated is very close to zero. Deliberately believing in vaccine myths and allowing vaccinophobia to outweigh the facts of vaccines will leave you wide open to infectious diseases which are supposed to be fully eradicated from the human population. The spread of COVID-19 in Lagos has been undermined by its residents for far too long, especially on the mainland. But we must remember that the safety precautions are not to protect us alone, neither is the vaccine. If you wear a face mask to cover up your nose and mouth in public spaces, if you apply a hand sanitizer to the palm of your hands occasionally, if you have been observing social distancing rules, then you need to seriously ask yourself what good skipping the COVID-19 vaccination will do you and those around you. The world is currently functioning as an incubator for this virus, the longer we allow it dwell among us the quicker it evolves into even more unpleasant variants.
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