Africa in a Bind on Vaccine Deliveries: CDC

NAIROBI. – Many people in African countries who have received their first shot of a Covid-19 vaccine do not know when they will get the second one due to delivery delays, according to the continent’s top public health official.

“We cannot predict when the second doses will come and that is not good for our vaccination programme,” John Nkengasong, the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), told reporters yesterday. Africa lags behind most other regions in Covid-19 vaccinations, with just under 14 million doses of mostly AstraZeneca vaccines having been administered on the continent of 1.3 billion.

On the contrary, Zimbabwe has so far administered 223 000 doses have been given with 28 797 people having been fully vaccinated since the programme started in February.

President Mnangagwa has hailed Zimbabwe’s ongoing Covid-19 vaccination programme, which is progressing well with the country having the eighth highest vaccination rate in Africa and third in the Southern Africa region.

Most of the reported side effects have been slight to moderate, the WHO’s African Region said in a statement, adding that no cases of blood clotting problems have been reported, touching on a particular concern about AstraZeneca vaccines.

So far, the majority of the vaccines available in African countries have been delivered via COVAX, a World Health Organization-backed (WHO) scheme designed to boost the distribution of vaccines to low-income nations.

COVAX aims to deliver 600 million shots to about 40 African countries this year, enough to vaccinate 20 percent of their populations.

The majority of those doses are AstraZeneca shots produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII). But last month, India suspended its exports to meet rising domestic demand following a surge in COVID-19 cases.

Nkengasong had warned at the time that India’s move would undermine the continent’s inoculation plans and could have a “catastrophic” impact if extended.

“If you finish vaccinating your people before Africa or other parts of the world, you have not done yourself any justice because variants will emerge and undermine your own vaccination efforts,” he said. – Al Jazeera