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16 September 2021 | Story Nonsindiso Qwabe | Photo Supplied
Dr Samantha Potgieter.

As COVID-19 vaccines continue to be a topical issue in South Africa and indeed in the world itself, the Department of Human Resources held a webinar for the UFS community on 10 September that delved deeper into the questions surrounding the vaccine. 

Dr Samantha Potgieter, infectious disease expert at the Universitas Academic Hospital and affiliated Lecturer in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of the Free State, addressed some commonly raised concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine and how it affects us.

Dr Potgieter started off by saying that coronaviruses have been causing outbreaks among humans for millennia. While COVID-19 is relatively mild and self-limiting in 80% of patients, 20% of patients are at risk of developing severe disease.
She said before a vaccine could be introduced to a population, it had to go through rigorous testing and clinical trials. Only once safety has been confirmed, it can be released and distributed. 

“This process usually takes about ten years; this is what we are used to. But it has happened much quicker for the COVID-19 vaccine, and I think this is a fact that many people misinterpret – that the evidence might not be that robust, which is certainly not the case. COVID-19 vaccines have gone through all this rigorous testing, thousands of patients had volunteered for trial testing studies. The point is that we already had the technology, vaccination is not something new to humans. So, these preclinical trials were able to happen very quickly, and because of the large number of infections and because the focus of the entire world was on finding a cure, it was a very set process to get these trials through the adequate phases.” 

She said the COVID-19 vaccine was approved by national regulators, manufactured to exacting standards, and only thereafter distributed – as is the case for all drugs released into the market.

How does the vaccine work?

Dr Potgieter said the vaccine works by producing antibodies against the COVID-19 virus. If you are infected with the COVID-19 virus after getting vaccinated, these antibodies bind to the virus and stop it from replicating.

“When you get infected with a disease such as COVID-19, natural antibodies are produced by the immune system to fight the disease. If you get infected again, the immune system will remember how to respond, and quickly destroy the virus. A vaccine can do the same, but without the risk of disease from natural infection. Vaccines work by imitating a bacteria or virus using either mRNA in the case of the COVID-19 vaccine, or a dead or weakened version of the bacteria or virus. The vaccine raises the body’s alarm. It trains the body to recognise and fight the virus. When the body encounters the real-deal virus, it is primed and ready to fight for the body’s health.”

She said South Africa had the mRNA vaccine in the form of the Pfizer vaccine, and the adenoviral vector vaccine in the form of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Why should you get the vaccine?

Dr Potgieter said vaccines are safe and effective, and the most compelling reasons for getting vaccinated are the following:

-To protect yourself from severe disease
-To protect those around you who may be at risk of severe disease
-To restore the social and economic platforms of the country, and the world at large.
She said that while the vaccine does not prevent you from getting COVID-19, it offers better protection against the development of severe disease, and vaccinated people had 50% less chance of spreading the virus.
The most common side effects of the vaccine are the following:
-Pain at the injection site
-Swollen lymph nodes
-Fever
-Fatigue
-Headache
-Myalgia (muscle pain)

“These are indications that the immune system is mounting a response. When it mounts a response, it produces antibodies,” she said.

Answers to commonly asked questions are the following:

1. Can the vaccine alter my DNA?
“No, it goes nowhere near the nucleus of the cell.”

2. What happens when you get COVID in between the first and second doses?
“Some protection is conferred after the first dose, but maximum protection is conferred two weeks after the second dose. Vaccination is still advised.” 

Dr Potgieter said patients who were between vaccinations still show better recovery results than those without.

3. What about natural immunity?
“Natural immunity might confer better protection, but it runs the risk of severe disease. Yes, immunity can be gained through natural immunity, it can be gained through vaccination, and it can certainly be gained by a combination of the two.”

4. What about long-term side effects?
“Serious side effects that cause long-term health problems following any vaccination are very rare, including the COVID-19 vaccination.”

To get the answers to more of your questions, the webinar can be accessed via the following link: https://event.webinarjam.com/go/replay/43/053q6a8vay9a0qa2

News Archive

‘Is the South African university curriculum ‘colonial'?’ asks Prof Jansen
2017-11-24

Description: Jansen readmore Tags: Prof Jonathan Jansen, colonial, university curriculum, western knowledge

From left; Prof Corli Witthuhn, Vice-Rector: Research; former Rector and Vice-
Chancellor of the UFS, Prof Jonathan Jansen; Prof Michael Levitt, and
Prof Francis Petersen at the celebration lecture at the UFS.
Photo: Johan Roux

One of the critical issues that emerged from the South African student protests during 2015 and 2016 was a demand for the decolonisation of university curriculums. 

A senior professor at the Stellenbosch University, Prof Jonathan Jansen, said the number of people, including academics, who joined the cause without adequately interrogating the language of this protest, was astonishing. “The role of social scientists is to investigate new ideas … when something is presented to the world as truth.” Prof Jansen was speaking during a celebration lecture at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein on 15 November 2017. 

Large amount of knowledge not African

He said the accusation is correct to a limited degree. “The objection, in essence, is against the centring of Western, and especially European knowledge, in institutional curricula.” There is no doubt that most of what constitutes curriculum knowledge in South African universities, and in universities around the world, derive from the West. “The major theories and theorists, the methodologists and methods are disproportionally situated outside of the developing world,” Prof Jansen said. 

The dilemma is, how will South Africa and the continent change the locus of knowledge production, considering the deteriorating state of public universities? “In the absence of vibrant, original, and creative knowledge production systems in Africa and South Africa, where will this African-centred or African-led curriculum theory come from,” Jansen asked. He says the re-centring of a curriculum needs scholars with significant post-doctoral experiences that are rooted in the study of education and endowed with the critical independence of thought. “South Africa's universities are not places where scholars can think. South African universities’ current primary occupation is security and police dogs,” Prof Jansen said. 

Collaboration between African and Western scholars
“Despite the challenges, not everything was stuck in the past,” Prof Jansen said. South African scholars now lead major research programmes in the country intellectually. The common thread between these projects is that the content is African in the subjects of study, and the work reflects collaboration with academics in the rest of the world. These research projects attract postgraduate students from the West, and the research increasingly affects curriculum transformations across university departments. There is also an ongoing shift in the locus of authority for knowledge production within leading universities in South Africa. Prof Jansen feels a significant problem that is being ignored in the curriculum debate, is the concern about the knowledge of the future. How does South Africa prepare its young for the opportunities provided by the groundswell of technological innovation? “In other parts of the world, school children are learning coding, artificial intelligence, and automation on a large scale. They are introduced to neuroscience and applied mathematics,” he said.

Prof Jansen said, in contrast, in South Africa the debate focuses on the merits of mathematics literacy, and what to do with dead people’s statues.

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