The discovery of the omicron variant by scientists in South Africa drew the world’s attention to a problem that has been touted for months by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The inequality in access to vaccination between rich and poor countries has the potential to postpone the end of the pandemic in the world, with the risk of new, more resistant variants emerging — although it is not known whether the omicron originated in the African country or was only identified there .
The concentration of doses in rich countries, called “vaccination apartheid” and “moral failure” by the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom, is still one of the main obstacles. But he is not the only one, and, especially in recent months, some countries are experiencing the opposite problem: excessive doses and difficulty in getting them into people’s arms, either because of logistical obstacles or because of resistance on the part of the population.
In addition to an increase in donations via bilateral agreements or through programs such as Covax (the consortium seeks more equitable distribution of the vaccine), pharmaceutical companies have been selling doses at a discount, and in some poor countries it would cost less than 1% of GDP to immunize all adults, he says. the New York Times.
Of the ten countries with the highest GDP per capita in sub-Saharan Africa, seven have vaccination rates below the world average — among them South Africa, Botswana, Gabon, Namibia and Angola.
However, on November 24th, the South African government asked two manufacturers to delay delivery of purchased doses because they are in excess of stock. With 24% of the population fully vaccinated, the country of 60 million people had 16 million doses stored.
Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi also asked for time off in sending vaccines, many of them donated. “They don’t want to waste doses that may expire. Now, governments are looking into the possibility of making vaccination mandatory,” says Sibusiso Nkomo, head of communication at the Afrobarometer institute.
Namibia even announced that it could be forced to destroy more than 268,000 doses if it does not increase the pace of vaccination. Thus, one of the barriers to distributing the vaccine is related not to the quantity, but to the “quality” of the donations. On Monday (29), a statement from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urges donors to do more planning.
“Donations have been punctual, provided with little advance and short expiration dates. This has made it extremely challenging for countries to plan vaccination campaigns”, says the text.
The letter urges donors and manufacturers to commit to shipping vaccines that are valid for at least ten weeks, release more doses at a time, reducing transaction costs, and ship syringes and supplies.
“Countries need predictable and reliable supplies. Having to plan for the short term and ensure that short-lived doses are applied adds to the logistical burden on already overloaded systems.”
Another factor for slowness is vaccine resistance. It is the same problem experienced in Europe and the United States, but experts see in Africa more an apathy related to decades of exploitation than the anti-vax lobby arising from the political polarization that can be seen among Americans, for example.
Another difference is that, in addition to the spread of fake news, the distrust of health treatments from abroad contributes to vaccine hesitation in Africa, due to the collective trauma of medical experiments from the colonial era — forced sterilizations and deliberate infections due to diseases in Africa. early 20th century to unethical pharmaceutical research in the 1990s.
According to a study done in 15 African countries in 2020, 49% of respondents said they believed Covid-19 was designed by a foreign country, and 45% that Africans are used as “lab mice” in vaccine trials. Domestic political factors also undermined Africans’ confidence. The Afrobarometer showed that those who don’t trust their government are ten times less likely to want the vaccine. In Ghana, 40% of those who do not intend to get vaccinated cited this factor as a cause.
In South Africa, a fraud in communications contracts forced the health minister to resign in the midst of a pandemic. “People are worried about the side effects of the vaccine, but that’s not all,” says Mia Malan, executive director of South Africa’s Bhekisisa Health Journalism Center. “The same government involved in corruption scandals runs the campaigns of vaccination. Many do not trust.”
According to Malan, the embezzlement left the Ministry of Health without money for pro-vaccine campaigns. For her, mandatory immunization in the private sector should increase adherence to drugs.
Africa’s near-total dependence on imported vaccines—only 1% of the doses applied are produced on the continent—is another problem. Investing in local production of immunization agents and raw materials is seen as a way to improve Africans’ access to protection, although not immediately.
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