Appearance Omicron variant COVID-19, which was first detected in South Africa and other South African countries, is casting a harsh new spotlight on vaccine inequality. For months, health experts have warned that low vaccination rates in developing countries make it more likely that dangerous new mutations will form as the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads unchecked. .
To date, only 7.3% of Africans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, compared with 58% in both the US and Europe, where booster shots are now widely available. Meanwhile, only 12% of the 1.9 billion doses Promises for low- and middle-income countries were delivered in early November.
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But to improve Africa’s vaccination rates, it won’t just take large doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. A lack of coordination in vaccine delivery, weak health infrastructure, and vaccine delays caused by a lack of trust and misinformation are slowing immunization efforts when doses become available. African health experts say.
Even South Africa, which has one of the continent’s highest vaccination rates with 24% of its population fully vaccinated, is struggling to get more shots. While South African scientists shocked the world last week when they identified a new variant of Omicron, the country’s health officials told US drugmakers delay the delivery of more doses of vaccine because the demand is not strong enough, and they worry about the upcoming expiration date.
Scientists still don’t know if the Omicron variant is more dangerous. However, they are concerned that large number of mutations, which includes about 30 in the mutant protein, could make it more transmissible and could make the vaccine less effective.
“What is happening right now is largely unavoidable. The current variant, Omicron, is the result of the world not vaccinating its citizens equitably and effectively,” said Dr Ayoade Alakija, co-chair of the Alliance for African Vaccine Distribution. African Union, said. “Global North’s reckless and isolated behavior has created the current situation, and until they are held accountable, I fear Omicron may be just the beginning.”
Poor coordination of vaccine delivery
Most African countries based on COVAX, a program set up to provide vaccines to low- and middle-income countries – to provide COVID-19 vaccine shipments. However, as the world’s largest vaccine producer, Serum Institute of India, was hit by production problems and export bans following India’s own COVID-19 surge, the supply of Please slow down. Only 245 million doses have been delivered to sub-Saharan Africa, according to UNICEF Vaccine Tracker.
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Many African countries are forced to rely on donations. But shipments are often “poorly coordinated,” said Dr Lul Riek, southern Africa coordinator for the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Worse still, some shipments include doses of the drug close to the expiration date.
“[The vaccines] will arrive in the country, maybe not even at the right time, not when they are expected to arrive. And they also have a very short shelf life — they’re about to expire in three or two months,” Riek told TIME.
In Namibia, for example, authorities will destroy about 50,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine because they will Expires next week. In spite of only one 11% of Namibia’s population Health officials warned that they may be forced to destroy an additional 200,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in January and February because of slowing demand, partly due to vaccine stockpiles and earlier. exhausted dose.
The need to store vaccines in extreme cold adds complications to vaccination efforts in sub-Saharan Africa. Many countries had overfunded and overwhelmed healthcare systems even before the pandemic hit.
“There are concerns about medical infrastructure and especially cold chain storage,” Alakija. “However, the significant stress caused by the short shelf life of vaccines is unnecessary and unfair.”
Confusion fuels vaccine hesitancy
Even with sufficient doses of vaccine, vaccine hesitancy across the continent remains high – fueled by a combination of online misinformation, distrust among government leaders and history of western medical experiments on the continent.
A December 2020 Africa CDC survey found that 79% of respondents said they would take the COVID-19 vaccine if it was safe and effective, but 25% of the 15,000 respondents said they believe the COVID-19 vaccine would not be safe.
Healthcare workers’ reluctance to vaccinate is another problem. While high-income countries have at least 80% of their healthcare workers vaccinated, only 27% of health workers in Africa are fully immunized, according to the report. a report by the World Health Organization published in November. Survey in several countries has suggested that less than half of healthcare workers are willing to inject COVID-19.
In South Africa, the Indaba Young Nurses Union called on 18,000 members to boycott the vaccine. Union leader Rich Sicina told TIME his group was not against vaccines, but said the government had not consulted health workers about vaccine deployment and that the group did not trust the process. this program.
Sicina also cites concerns about how quickly a COVID-19 vaccine has been developed and rolled out — despite the fact that drugmakers have conducted large-scale clinical trials before with regulatory approval and an estimated 3.3 billion people worldwide received the dose, with few side effects.
Travel bans could make it worse
Although many experts believe stopping COVID-19 for good will require defeating it in Africa and developing countries, African authorities say that recent travel bans due to the Omicron variant will only hinder their ability to fight the virus.
Thierno Balde, Incident Director for COVID-19 Emergency Response at WHO’s regional office for Africa, told TIME that the restrictions will only stigmatize countries that are likely to report infections quickly. as fast as disease hotspots.
“If people are not encouraged to share information in a timely manner, these variations will continue to circulate in many other countries,” he said.
Russell Rensburg, director of the Rural Health Advocacy Project at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, says one consequence of these bans is that laboratories in affected countries will struggle to obtain the drug. try to conduct COVID-19 tests, due to fewer incoming flights. That means less ability to track the spread of the Omicron variant — even in South Africa, where there are advanced gene-sequencing facilities that detect Omicron and other variants.
Banning flights to and from the region will likely hit the developed world again — in the same way that the continent’s delayed COVID-19 vaccine dose-sharing did.
“I think these are some of the things that weren’t considered when these political leaders implemented the travel ban,” Rensburg said. “I think that’s what the world needs to look at. How do we deal with this is a global problem that needs global solutions? We should work together rather than against each other. “
