Professor Salim Abdool Karim said there was no reason for people to be worried over possible side effects after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine.
Speaking during an interview on SABC on Tuesday, the epidemiologist and chair of the ministerial advisory committee (MAC) on Covid-19, said: “Any medication you take will have side effects. There is no such thing as a medication with no side effects and vaccines do have side effects.
“Most of them are pretty minor, they involve a bit of pain and a bit of swelling at the [site] of the injection as you would get with receiving a measles vaccine or any other vaccine for that matter.
“We have found certainly with six vaccines that have released their results that the safety profile of the vaccines is really good. So there’s no reason to be concerned if somebody does encounter side effects, there’s a reporting mechanism we have in place.”
In a recent survey by Ipsos it was found that of the 47% of South African respondents who said they would refuse a vaccine, 65% cited concern about side effects.
The survey found this was the greatest concern for vaccine refusal worldwide.
At least two thirds of the population needs to take the vaccine to reach herd immunity, in order to effectively stop the Coronavirus from spreading and infecting people.
Government is expected to start the first roll-out of the vaccine next week, when health workers will get the jab.