Photographer: Rodger Bosch / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Rodger Bosch / AFP / Getty Images
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Some of South Africa’s foremost medical leaders and academics have called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to fire government officials over delays in purchasing Covid-19 vaccines, saying their actions will cause thousands of deaths and untold economic damage.
The demand was made in an op-ed by News24, the country’s largest Internet news site in the country, and signed by nine people, including Glenda Gray, the chairman of the South African Medical Research Council, and officials from other health organizations, hospitals and universities.
While at least 29 countries, ranging from Mexico to Germany, have begun to vaccinate their populations against the virus, South Africa has not yet entered into direct supply agreements with pharmaceutical companies. The country has ordered vaccines from the Covax facility, an initiative designed to ensure fair access to vaccines, but they will cover only 10% of the population of about 60 million and will be released in the second quarter of the year. arrive. Even then, a charity filed the deposit after the government missed a deadline it announced.
Failure to obtain vaccines is an “unforgivable failure, which will be measured in thousands of lives lost, disease for tens of thousands, a broken health care system, and deep and ongoing economic damage,” the health leaders and academics said in the op-ed. Ramaphosa will have to “wield the ax against the members and officials in his administration responsible for this dangerous fiasco and immediately begin correcting the course.”
Click here for South Africa’s progress in purchasing vaccines
Tyrone Seale, Ramaphosa’s acting spokesman, said he may comment after the presidency discusses the article. The Department of Health did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
South Africa is the worst hit country on the African continent with more than 1.09 million confirmed Covid-19 infections and 29,175 deaths. According to government estimates, last year’s economy probably contracted the most in the past nine decades.
The criticism comes on top of attacks on the vaccination strategy by opposition parties and the country’s largest unions linked to the ruling party.
With the world’s largest HIV epidemic and hundreds of thousands of tuberculosis patients, South Africa has an advanced health system with world-leading scientists. At least three Covid-19 vaccine trials are underway in the country, and Johnson & Johnson has agreed to have 300 million of its Covid-19 vaccines made in one Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd. plant in the country when the shot is approved.
For progress with worldwide vaccinations, click here
“Public acknowledgment by officials that they felt it was unwise to start bilateral negotiations with vaccine suppliers because they couldn’t ‘risk’ ordering vaccines if they didn’t work is shockingly disingenuous,” said health leaders.
They also criticized the so-called ministerial advisory committee, a group of scientists appointed by Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, for endorsing the government’s arguments.
Gray and Francois Venter, a scientist who signed the op-ed, were removed from committee by Mkhize last year. Both were previously critical of the way the government is tackling the virus.
(Updates infections, deaths in the sixth paragraph)