Health CS Mutahi Kagwe under fire after casting doubt on new COVID-19 vaccine

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has raised doubt about the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

The CS expressed his reservations while delivering a status report to the Senate on the fight against COVID-19 in the country, saying he has “many doubts” about how the Pfizer-developed vaccine will combat the virus.

“Yesterday Pfizer said there is a vaccine but personally to tell you the truth I got my many doubts about it. they were talking about a disease that stops people from getting the virus. I would like to know how they knew in the first place that I was going to get the virus. When I have the virus and it goes down I can understand the major, but when you tell me that I stopped you from getting the virus how do you know I was going to get the virus in the first place. I have got my reservations,” said Kagwe.

The Health Cabinet Secretary’s low opinion on the vaccine, which has been hailed across the globe as a milestone in the war against the COVID-19 pandemic, seemed to have angered many Kenyans online.

Kenyans took to social media to troll Mutahi Kagwe for his point of argument and quick move to cast doubt on the groundbreaking research that sent message of hope to the world.

Pfizer Inc said on Monday its experimental COVID-19 vaccine was more than 90% effective, a major victory in the fight against a pandemic that has killed more than a million people, battered the world’s economy and upended daily life.

Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE are the first drugmakers to release successful data from a large-scale clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine. The companies said they have so far found no serious safety concerns and expect to seek U.S. authorization this month for emergency use of the vaccine.

Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, the scientists who developed the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, are a Turkish-German power couple.

Speaking to CNN on Monday, Pfizer CEO’s Albert Bourla called the vaccine “the greatest medical advance” in the last 100 years.