Pfizer may be harmful; import other vaccines: Prof. Tissa Vitharana

19 November 2021 06:50 pm

Virology expert Parliamentarian Prof. Tissa Vitharana today requested the Government to reduce importing Pfizer vaccine and focus more on other vaccines saying that Pfizer vaccine could be harmful to people.

He told Parliament that Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine was a messenger RNA vaccine and that no one could predict how it would react after a gene was injected directly into the human body.

He said RNA has been used in vaccines to inject humans for the first time and added that he, as a medical officer, had doubts about the Pfizer vaccine.

"I have a doubt about Pfizer scientifically. It is a new vaccine variety. It is a RNA vaccine. Vaccines produced using RNA have been used for the first time for humans to treat Covid-19. No one can predict how it would react when a gene is directly injected into the human body. It might cause harmful after effects. I am not saying such things will happen. There is a possibility," he said and added that therefore, he was requesting the authorities to use other alternative vaccines.

He said there were vaccines produced under normal methodology using completely inactivated virus such as Sinopharm.(Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera)