Oyo Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) says 75000 people in the state were vaccinated against the infection in the first round of vaccination exercise, with one person reporting serious effects from the vaccine and other 398 with mild symptoms as a slight headache and pain at the injection site.
According to a report by The Nigerian Tribune, Oyo EOC’s Co-lead on Risk Communication and Community Engagement Pillar, Dr Olusola Oriniowo speaking on Wednesday at an interactive session with media on COVID-19 in the state said a sample of 1000 people to know-how many developed adverse effects following vaccination found 58 per cent had mild side effects, with pain at injection site the overwhelming majority of these effects.
Dr Oriniowo, noting that there was underreporting of cases of side effects of the vaccine in Oyo State, said individuals are expected to report any symptom they noticed following the vaccine to be able to access correct advice and medical care on how to manage any effects of taking the vaccine.
On the current COVID -19 situation in the state, he said as at 6th of June 2021, 42,870 samples were tested, 6,558 tested positive for COVID-19; 6,731 people had recovered from the infection; 124 deaths recorded and 3 active cases of COVID-19 on treatment.
Incident Manager, Oyo State COVID-19 Emergency Operation Centre, Dr Taiwo Ladipo said the influx of people from countries with a high burden of COVID-19 cases and apathy towards COVID-19 testing is of concern to the EOC and urged cooperation of individuals in the community in ensuring suspected cases gets tested and treated.
According to Dr Ladipo, “even when we test minimally, we might just have a single case and it is something that is given us concern because it shows that we have not mopped it up in our society. Unfortunately, most of the testing is incidentally because some people want to travel abroad.
“So, we have more cases coming in from private laboratories that are doing the test for international travels and that tells us that we are still in the woods. The situation, we are in even portend danger because although we think that there are few cases, we could have some with new variants of COVID-19 causing calamity in other climes.”
Dr Ladipo said the number of people vaccinated in Oyo state is still low and not enough to ensure herd immunity and urged everyone to get set to be vaccinated during the next round of COVID -19 vaccination exercise in the state.
Mrs Titilope Akinleye, Oyo State Disease Surveillance and Notification Officer asked the media to debunk untrue and unverified information on COVID-19, sensitise the public on the need to keep to the preventive measures and be tested for COVID-19.
