Ro'ya TV station inerviewd the dean of Faculty of Medicine @ YU Prof. Khaldoon Bashaireh who answered the host's questions about the vaccination against COVID19 campaign in Jordan. He talked about the international collaboration during the pandemic and about the reaction of Jordan to this crisis starting for equipping hospital of all what nneded to cope with the increasing cases, and the prevention lockdowns and finally the supply of vaccines aiming to control the infection as soon as the vaccines were recognozed scientifically and approved by WHO.
He then talked about increasing awareness in the society of taking the vaccines after a period of misunderstanding of the truth about vaccines, stating that the cooperation between the government, the active bodies of the people, the media and the health institutions in increasing this awareness till we reached this stage we live of people's initiative to take the vaccines.
About Jordan's situation comapred to the world regarding vaccination against COVID19, the Dean said that according to the numbers of MOH - Jordan: till yesterday, 5 million 800 thousand vaccines were given already which means about 25% of all who live in Jordan took two doses of the vaccine, a percentage close to the world's numbers that reach about 30%. This means that Jordan is in the right way.
When he was asked about the safety of the vaccines, Prof. Bashaireh talked about the differences in human bodies in response to medications and vaccines in general, and the differences about the preparations among the different vaccines, those factors play role in the side effects that we see sometimes from vaccine to vaccine. The fact that the world has vaccinated people more than 4.5 billion times with no major problem happened from any vaccine let us with confidence label them as safe. With the side effects as minimum as expected and easily treatable then vaccines against COVID19 are safe as the other vaccines against other infections which are golbally accepted.
Dr. Bashaireh stressed on the positive attitude towards the vaccination, as he prefers to talk about this positive attitude rather than the absolute number of the population vaccinated to be safe. This positive attitude is really there in the society that we can see through the increasing awareness among people of the importance of vaccination and the increase in the medical efficiency in dealing with the corona cases, so we can notice the less negative results of the 2nd and 3rd waves of COVID when we compare them to the first wave.
He added that though vaccination protects alot from getting the disease, but even if the vaccinated person caught the disease, it will be milder and with less complications. But we have to be aware that we are not only aiming for the immunity of the person alone, but we are looking for the herd immunity and the saftey of public, so the anyone who gets the acquired immunity from catching the disease, this immunity's time is not long and is not the same for everyone, and here is the role of the vaccination again to increase this time of immunity as well as keeping up with the preventive measures like face masks and social distancing. we don't want an immunized person who could get infected wil mild symptoms infect others that could have the disease with more severe symptoms and complications.
Finally the Dean talked about the pioneering of the universities in Jordan in increasing the health awareness and opening the vaccination centers within their campuses. so their role was positive in the whole stage of COVID pandemic.
To watch the interview ( in Arabic Language) click on the link below