My experience of taking the COVID- 19 vaccine

I was extremely excited to get inoculated with Pfizer- Biontec mRNA vaccine. I received the initial dose on the 24th January 2021 in Solihull hospital outside the city of Birmingham in England.

When the COVID- 19 pandemic began to spiral out of control last year, I was unfortunate enough to contract this viral infection at the beginning of April 2020.

My symptoms were very unpleasant and scary to say the least. There were a few moments where I was not sure if I will pull through, but fortunately I survived it.

As a scientifically- oriented academic and medical industry professional I have also followed this novel coronavirus ( COVID- 19) pandemic with very keen interest, driven by my medical science research background and of course as a postgraduate researcher in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine - a scientific discipline within medical science that deals with the smallest particles the size of most known viruses and beyond. Taking the vaccine

I believe in leading by example, therefore when it was my turn to roll up my sleeve at the vaccination centre in Solihull hospital, I was so excited it really felt like science was on its way to winning this battle. It was hardly a year since the outbreak and already we were queuing for the vaccine, that is truly exceptional, and we need to give men and women within the scientific fraternity the credit they truly deserve.

I suffered from COVID- 19 in April last year. I want to make it crystal clear that those awful physical and emotional symptomatic experiences are truly scary and outright hostile.

Therefore, I would definitely rather have side effects of any vaccine that I was going to be offered than Covid symptoms, anxiety of not knowing if I will or will not make it, the fear of not being with my family, intubation and ventilation or any of the invasive procedures that millions of people have had to endure since the beginning of last year.

Even the thought of another time ( no matter how small it could be) of restrictions and lockdown, or chances of inadvertently passing the virus onto a loved one, friends or colleagues made me very uneasy.

So, I had my first dose of Pfiizer- Biontec mRNA vaccine, my young brother and a few of my friends and colleagues have had the Oxford- AstraZeneca vaccine in the last few weeks as well. We have all had various but known side effects with all these vaccines.

The common side effects were pain around the injection site that lasted between one to three days, mild headache, general body pains, joints pains and fatigue.

Some vaccine recipients experienced slightly severe headaches ( migraines headache) vomiting, chills and exhaustion. But these are generally all side effects that one should expect.

Having said this there are other individuals who did not experience any of these side effects at all following the jab. It is still a scientific mystery why some people experience these side effects and others don’t. This in any case should not deter anyone from taking the vaccines.

It must be understood that although our bodies are generally similar in anatomy and physiology, there is still massive genetic behavioural differences in how our immune systems function, that is the key thing that triggers the difference.

This difference means some people’s immune will overreact while in others it will just react calmly towards a vaccine. Another possible reason why some people will react more aggressively towards a vaccine could be because they have had previous exposure to the virus ( previous covid- 19 infection) and this potentially could lead to more active immune response, but this purely anecdotal.

Lately, there has been palpable apprehensions among the public over potentially more severe vaccine side effects. For example, the development of clots in very small number of AstraZeneca vector- based vaccine recipient dominated the news in most European countries and that was echoed by some African countries.

Reassuringly, the Medical and Health Products Regulatory Agency ( MHRA) and the European Medicines Agency ( EMA) have both studied this and concluded that there is no scientifically proven obvious link between the clot development and the vaccine.

Very reassuring indeed! It is crucial that the public have access to quick, honest and open answers about their queries in order to deal with any misinformation circulating because today, social media can spread wrong information much faster than traditional news platforms.

All these vaccines are very safe for us human beings. What is not safe for us is catching and spreading the corona virus.

Let’s progress together and fight against this disease.

TAKE THE VACCINE WITH NO FEAR and lets all.

Patrick Jolomba, Medical Science Researcher