By Zainab Suleiman Okino
Initial background checks in Zanzibar and confirmation from medical personnel back home in Nigeria revealed that the skin irritation may have resulted from from either a combination of COVID-19 and yellow fever vaccines that she took nine days apart or the yellow fever vaccines not being up to 10 years apart.
The probable effects of the vaccines combination first got her body iching unbearably, her skin soon turned black and rough before it started peeling living her completely disfigured.
As required by international protocol and in preparation for the conference in Zanzibar, Madam Helen took the AstraZeneca jab on September 20, 202I.
On reaching the Ministry of Health for her yellow fever card update she explained to them when last she took yellow fever vaccine (2014) and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, but the other officials said it did not matter.
“When I got to the ministry of health I showed them my yellow card indicating that I took the vaccine in 2014 and that of COVID-19, September 20, nine days earlier. They said it didn’t matter, so they gave me the yellow fever vaccine, this was on September 29, 2021”, madam Helen said.
It was not until when she was already in Zanzibar, that her nightmares began.
“I couldn’t sleep, every part of my body was itching, I didn’t know where to scratch, I was just rolling on the ground or wherever I was.
“The Nigerian delegation at the conference through the conference organisers came to my aid. After getting first aid, one of the doctors at the conference was asked to acompany back to Nigeria”. That was a trip that was to take her to from Zanzibar to Nigeria was truncated half way.
She said the real challenge came when she finally arrived Nigeria where she was treated shabbily.
“What I experienced at Zanzibar is nothing compared to Nigeria by which time my body had turned black like a roasted goat.
“Apart from the pain, I was humiliated and treated like a leper. Medical personnel were very unprofessional tossing me from one place to the other” before she was finally seen by a doctor who prescribed some medicines for hee
Expressing concern about all the vaccines, she could not tell whether the problem was caused by the closeness of the vaccination, or yellow fever which she took in 2014, and not up to 10 years apart.
“I told the nurse it hadn’t been up to 10 years since I had my yellow fever vaccine, but she said it didn’t matter”
Luckily for Madam Helen, she is recuperating even as her body still looks bad and terrible, making her unable to go out and earn a living.