FALSE: Coronavirus vaccines can cause infertility

Claim: Can taking the COVID-19 vaccine cause infertility?

Source: Bridget Otoo

Verdict: False

Researched by Gifty Tracy Aminu

A Ghanaian Journalist, Bridget Otoo in a Facebook post is suggesting that taking COVID-19 vaccines could cause infertility in women.

With over 84,000 Facebook followers, the journalist in a one-minute long video, published with the caption: “Why I didn’t take the vaccine….,” said she would not take the vaccine because “I don’t have a kid.”

This comes at a time when Ghanaians have started receiving COVID-19 vaccine services following the rollout of the 600,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines received from COVAX, a global scheme to procure free coronavirus jabs for poorer countries.

The one-minute-long video has so far been viewed more than 10,000 times.

Claim

Bridget Otoo partly said:

“My big sister’s doctor told her not to take it because she wants to have a kid and that there is not enough evidence to support it. I put that to my Ghana Doctor and he said well, really there is no connection between our immunity which is where the vaccine would work and our hormones so I can go ahead and take it when the time is right. But I have still decided not to take it because her doctor has told her not to take it; I don’t have a kid as well so I wouldn’t take it until we have enough evidence to support it. So if you are like me, you shouldn’t but if not, you take it if the time is right.”

Fact-check

The World Health Organization (WHO) has dismissed the claim as false.

According to WHO Director of the Department of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals, Dr Katherine O’Brien, “The vaccines we give cannot cause infertility. This is a rumour that has gone around about many different vaccines and there is no truth to the rumour. There is no vaccine that causes infertility.”

Meanwhile, the Vice President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Dr Frank Serebour in responding to the claim said: “It is not true. The fact is that there is no correlation between the vaccine and fertility.”

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo in his 24th address to the nation to update citizens on measures being taken to combat the spread of coronavirus also addressed similar concerns, saying: “Taking the vaccine will not alter your DNA, it will not embed a tracking device in your body neither will it cause infertility in women or men.”

Verdict

The claim that COVID-19 vaccines can cause infertility is false.