KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC—Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton says he will respond to growing concerns following reports that the COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by AstraZeneca has been withdrawn from the market due to concerns of serious side effects.
Earlier this week, AstraZeneca said it was withdrawing its COVID-19 vaccine. This follows the company’s admission that the vaccine could cause rare side effects such as blood clots and low platelet counts.
The admission came via a U.K. class action lawsuit seeking US$125 million for almost 50 AstraZeneca vaccine side effects victims.
Tufton said a statement would be made after the leading opposition People’s National Party’s Shadow Minister of Health, Dr. Alfred Dawes, on Thursday called for the Ministry of Health to articulate its position on the recent developments regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Speaking Friday on Radio Jamaica’s talk show program, Hotline, Tufton also defended the government’s vaccine program during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We took a very conservative position on the distribution of vaccines to our population. We always insisted that vaccines go through the various expert committees and validation and final sanctioning by the World Health Organization and their expert committees. Some countries should have done that. Other vaccines were available on the market, which we could have accessed earlier, which we did not based on that highest standard of validation that we insisted on.
“So we believe as a country, as a government, we took the right approach, and I am prepared to maintain that Jamaicans were safer for the vaccine,” he said.
Tufton, who also said he preferred to be briefed by the clinical team before giving more details, could not recall whether the government had granted an exemption to AstraZeneca for any liability regarding the vaccine’s safety.
He then insisted that the government should not be held liable for any deaths associated with the vaccine, arguing that the shot saved the lives of thousands of Jamaicans during the global pandemic.
“We went through a validation process. We were very conservative, and we offered the vaccine to every Jamaican who wanted who opted to take it. The government is responsible for protecting the country and the nation, particularly in a crisis like this. And I still very much believe that…we did the right thing,” he said, adding that his only regret is that more than 3,000 Jamaicans died from COVID-19.
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