HEALTH Minister Sylvia Masebo says there is no disease which can be compared to COVID-19 in terms of its spread.

In an interview, Masebo said a lot of COVID-19 vaccines were developed because the pandemic took the world by storm and it was an emergency.

“The issue is that when you look at COVID, it came as an emergency and there is no disease so far that can be compared to COVID-19. When you compare it to TB, compared to HIV, compared to polio, measles, there is no disease which can be compared to COVID in terms of the spread. At least in these others, it’s a specific population which is affected and doesn’t affect the whole population whereas COVID affects everyone. As a result, due to the urgency, we needed to have vaccines working at different areas and at different rates,” she said.

“Imagine if we had one company, one vaccine only to vaccinate the whole world, can the demand be made? It can’t, and also the duration which we had to fast track the vaccination, one company was not going to manage. So that is the reason why they’re so many vaccines because each company was rushing to see if they would meet the deadline for them to be able to have their product administered. We will continue observing the situation and make necessary recommendations as the situation evolves.”

And Masebo said the electronic COVID-19 certificate was effective globally.

“The COVID-19 certificate, it’s effective globally, it’s not that paper-based certificate which is used. Our team, the ministry IT, they have developed an electronic one. So it has specific markers, specific code which is accepted globally, so when you travel they need to look at that. So people don’t have to go and present that paper-based certificate to anyone, they can even make adjustments to what is being provided, which is an electronic one and it’s valid for the whole world. I have personally used it in Europe, have used it in America, I have used it in African countries and it is accepted,” said Masebo.