Vaccinations delivered to Africa through the World Health Organization-backed COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) scheme will not be enough to contain the pandemic, the Africa CDC, the African Union’s public health agency, has warned. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that less than 2% of global vaccinations have been performed on the continent so far.
Delivery issues and a sense of vaccination nationalism in wealthier countries partially explain this gap. But logistical problems are also to blame, and inefficient management and not properly prioritizing risk groups have made things worse.
“This is compounded by reports of possible side effects from vaccines and online disinformation campaigns on the Internet,” says Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi, Head of the Nairobi-based African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), one of Africa’s leading public health institutions.
Which countries are leading the way?
Kyobutungi said African countries are generally lagging behind. While disappointing, the epidemiologist said it’s not much of a surprise.
“You can divide African countries into three categories,” she said. “There are those who have vaccinated about 2% – Senegal, Rwanda, Ghana. And then we have Kenya, which started slowly but has gone up. But Kenya still has less than 1%. And then there are countries like Uganda and Nigeria which has less than 0.5%. Each country seems to be struggling with different things. “
Each country faces different challenges, she said. However, a major problem remains that poorer countries still have less access to vaccine doses in the first place.
“Kenya got a million doses and distributed them all over the country, but in Nairobi people are being turned away because they don’t have enough,” she said, noting that the country was originally believed to have received about 1.5 million doses by now. The country has so far failed to vaccinate high-priority groups such as health officials and teachers.
Spreading the vaccine is another problem, Kyobutungi said. She said Kenya tried to distribute vaccine doses fairly across all of its regions, but failed because urban centers have much better infrastructure and organizational networks than rural regions. This meant that not all doses available in rural areas were used, while demand in the capital Nairobi far exceeded supply.
Zimbabwe started vaccinating with the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine in February
Rwanda, unlike Kenya, was quick to anticipate the problem and directed the roll-out of vaccinations to urban centers. “Rwanda has a very extensive list of priority groups,” said Kyobutungi. “It included health workers, but in Kigali they vaccinated prisoners, they vaccinated Uber drivers, they vaccinated motor taxi drivers, they vaccinated people in the markets and old people. Outside of Kigali, they focused on health workers. doses in a short time. “
AstraZeneca is at the forefront of Africa
AstraZeneca’s vaccine is most commonly administered in Africa. The reason is simple: it is relatively inexpensive and – unlike other vaccines – easy to store, as it does not require refrigeration at ultra-low temperatures.
Reports of possible side effects, including rare cerebral sinus vein thrombosis, or blood clots in veins draining blood from the brain, have sparked heated debate in Africa. But most countries have decided to follow WHO’s advice to continue administering the AstraZeneca vaccine. Among them is Nigeria. The country of more than 200 million people has not recorded any vaccination-related deaths or blood clots, said Faisal Shuaib of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency in Nigeria.
South Africa has now stopped administering the AstraZeneca shot because it does not appear to be effective against the South African coronavirus variant. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was considered a viable alternative until reports of blood clots surfaced in the United States. This means that the roll-out of vaccinations in South Africa is now completely suspended.
Vaccines have been transported to African countries through various routes through various initiatives, such as COVAX. The global initiative was created to give all countries equal and fair access to vaccines. However, the African Union and individual African governments have also taken steps to obtain doses beyond these initiatives, while a number of European states, China, Russia and India have donated vaccines to certain countries.
Kyobutungi does not think these different sources complicated the immunization drive. She said the vaccines delivered to African countries are unusually centrally stored and distributed, noting that Senegal received Chinese vaccines first, followed by AstraZeneca doses produced in India.
Likewise, Rwanda first acquired BioNTech-Pfizer vaccines, before importing AstraZeneca doses. And Kenya received doses through the COVAX program and through Indian donations.
Vaccine nationalism leading to vaccine skepticism
Kyobutungi foresees a problem with the rich countries rejecting the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines because they can afford to buy alternatives, leaving African countries with what’s left simply because they have no choice. This, she said, could increase vaccine skepticism among Africans.
Kyobutungi said African countries are falling behind in their vaccination campaigns
The WHO has therefore urged all countries to invest more in the COVAX program and warns against succumbing to “vaccine nationalism”, with some states buying up newly developed vaccines and prioritizing only their own people.
“This is a major problem facing Africa,” said Kyobutungi. Nationalist tendencies, she said, “are undermining the COVAX initiative,” and delivery of vaccine doses to Africa through COVAX is 20% behind schedule. She added that it was not in the long-term interest of global health for countries like the United States to prioritize vaccinating every U.S. citizen before considering sharing doses with other countries.
Vaccine doses are lost
African countries require massive amounts of doses to immunize their populations. Strangely enough, however, doses are lost due to poor infrastructure. For example, Malawi’s Health Minister Charles Mwansambo announced this week that more than 16,400 doses had expired and would now be destroyed. They were part of a shipment of 102,000 doses provided by the African Union.
Kyobutungi said she expects there will be ongoing problems with cold chain logistics and insurance, adding that there could be news in two months that 200,000 doses had passed due to the difficulties of getting them to nationwide. regions. And, she said, recalling these already distributed vaccines was quite a challenge indeed.
This article has been translated from German