Did a Pfizer Vaccine Kill Children in Nigeria?

A tweet published on January 16 indicates that a Pfizer vaccine killed and disabled children in Nigeria.

The tweet was published on the Hotunz Blog account, which is a news website that also published an article containing the same information and image.

Background

The Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine became the first to receive a WHO approval on December 31, 2020. More than 30 countries had already rolled out their COVID-19 vaccination programs as of January 5. Among some of the concerns raised by the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom include vaccine equity.

Dr Adhanom noted that there is a crippling bias in which the rich are readily acquiring the COVID-19 vaccines, while the poor “watch and wait”.

"Until we end the #COVID19 pandemic everywhere, we won’t end it anywhere.

As we speak, rich countries are rolling out vaccines, while the 🌍’s least-developed countries watch & wait.

Every day that passes, the divide grows larger between the world’s haves & have nots"-@DrTedros

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 25, 2021

Verification

According to a report from a committee commissioned by Nigeria’s Ministry of Health, Pfizer in 1996 stepped in to assist in mitigating a Meningitis epidemic in Nigeria. The report that looked into Pfizer’s clinical trial of the Trovan vaccine against Meningitis in Nigeria’s Kano State indicates that the trial involved 200 children of the average age of 10-years. 11 children died as a result of the clinical trial, while some developed complications. The investigation committee accused Pfizer of failing to follow due procedure before conducting the clinical trials. The doctors involved were also accused of failing to obtain licenses to perform the clinical trials in Nigeria.

After the Kano State government sued Pfizer, the two parties in July 2009 agreed to an out-of-court settlement whose terms involved over $30 million given to the victims’ families as well as the Kano State government.

However, the tweet stating that the Pfizer vaccine killed children in Nigeria contains misleading information including the claim that the vaccine had killed and disabled over 200 children in 2007, yet the incident took place in 1996 and killed 11 children with an unknown number of disabled children according to the report issued by the investigation committee. The image attached to the Hotunz Blog tweet and article is also misleading since the children shown are not from Nigeria but from Sierra Leone as was previously debunked by Piga Firimbi.

Verdict

Reports that a Pfizer vaccine killed children in Nigeria are TRUE.