Fake Covid vaccine found in Iran – and beyond?

We are bringing this matter to our readers and regional doctors attention as sadly there is always someone prepared to prey on others misfortune. The original article is on the WHO website and they provide detail on how to identify fake vaccines and those vials that have been tampered with. It was Astra Zeneca fake vaccine discovered in the original report. https://www.who.int/news/item/04-11-2021-medical-product-alert-n-7-2021-falsified-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca It is not clear if fake vaccine is still circulating or has been fully removed from circulation but all patients, doctors, health systems and governments should remain vigilant. We stress that all vaccine should be acquired from a reliable and long trusted source. There are implications on various levels, i.e. a systemic flaw where not all vaccines in the system can be trusted and from the population health viewpoint where not all people will necessarily have the immunity they assumed they had. We also need to be aware that whatever was injected was also not necessarily harmless. Ideally the Iranian government should pay for re-vaccination as it is the national system that was flawed and ordinary Iranian people can ill afford the cost of vaccination. We have also found that immunity decreases after vaccination and after infection with COVID-19, and with new variants arising in the community, free (re)vaccination of all citizens will cover any shortfalls caused by fake vaccines and will be a positive population health approach on many levels. It has also been suggested that there may be further corruption within the system whereby casting doubt on A-Z, which is a reputable vaccine, allows some other vaccine vendors to push their own brand and after this reported subterfug,e can providers of competing vaccines/sources all be trusted? It is a systemic failure that a fake vaccine could be introduced in the first place and proper precautions need to be taken to prevent fake vaccines entering the system in all countries. POSTSCRIPT WAR: Once again we have innocent people being slaughtered by the armies of, let us be frank, evil and insane men. The dangerously mentally ill rule most of the planet. How on earth does this happen? How on earth does it still happen in 2022? Family medicine deals with the physical, mental and psychological health of all people and as Publisher of World Family Medicine Journal I feel obliged to speak up about the endless slaughter, the endlessly brutalisation, and the endless dispossession. Today it is Ukraine, yesterday it was Myanmar and who knows who it will be tomorrow. It must stop now and we have to find a way to make it stop forever as it is the biggest family medicine issue on the planet and always has been.