JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
Some Africans are hesitating to get COVID-19 vaccines amid concerns about their safety, alarming public health officials as some countries start to destroy thousands of doses that expired before use.
Malawi
and South Sudan in recent days have said they will destroy some of their doses,
a concerning development on a continent where health officials have been
outspoken about the need for vaccine equity as the world’s rich nations hold
the bulk of shots.
Africa,
whose 1.3 billion people represent 16 per cent of the world’s population, has
received less than 2 per cent of the COVID-19 vaccine doses administered around
the world, according to the World Health 0rganisation (WHO).
The
continent has confirmed more than 4.5 million COVID-19 cases, including 120,000
deaths, a tiny fraction of the global fatalities and caseload. But some experts
worry that the 54-nation continent will suffer in the long term if it takes
longer than expected to meet the threshold scientists believe is needed to stop
uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 — 70 per cent or higher of the population
having immunity through vaccination or past infection.
Achieving
that goal will require about 1.5 billion vaccine doses for Africa if the
two-shot AstraZeneca vaccine continues to be widely used. But safety concerns
relating to that vaccine, often the main shot available under the donor-backed
COVAX programme to ensure access for developing countries, have left some Africans
worried.
Vaccine-related
suspicions have been spread widely on social media, driven partly by a general
lack of trust in authorities. Uganda’s health minister had to refute
allegations she faked receiving a shot, even posting a video of herself getting
the jab on Twitter, along with the admonition: “Please stop spreading fake
news!”
Some
have raised the untrue claim that the shots can cause infertility on sites such
as WhatsApp. Others openly question the speed with which COVID-19 vaccines have
been developed.
“The
world has failed to find a vaccine for AIDS all these years, but they quickly
found a vaccine for COVID? I am not going to go for that vaccine,” said Richard
Bbale, an electrician in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, voicing fear that an
experimental vaccine could be harmful. “Even if the government forces us to get
the vaccine as if it’s a national ID, I will not go.”
Austin
Demby, Sierra Leone’s health minister, told reporters last week that a third of
the 96,000 doses the country received in March will likely not be used before
they expire, citing a lack of urgency among some people who decided that
COVID-19 is “not as bad as Ebola,” which ravaged the country several years ago.
“People
are worried this is another public experiment they want to make on our people,”
he said.
WHO
and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have urged African
governments to continue rolling out the AstraZeneca vaccine, saying its
benefits outweigh any risks after European countries limited its use over
concerns about rare blood clots in a small number of recipients.
“Anything
you take has a risk. Any medication,” Africa CDC director John Nkengasong told
a briefing last week, citing some essential drugs that can cause blood clots in
rare cases. “That’s the way we should be looking at these vaccines.”
The
Africa CDC said in a statement last week it had received guidance from the
Serum Institute of India recommending a three-month “shelf life extension” on
the April 13 expiration date of at least a million AstraZeneca shots delivered
to Africa.
Africa
nations “don’t have a choice,” Nkengasong said, urging Malawi to use all its
shots after authorities in the southern African nation said they would burn
16,000 AstraZeneca doses that expired earlier in April.
It
is unclear if Malawi will follow that advice.
The
country has administered less than half of more than 500,000 doses it received
via COVAX, leading Victor Mithi, head of the Society of Medical Doctors in
Malawi, to blame vaccine misconceptions.
“We
are continuously assuring Malawians that the vaccine is safe and that once they
feel anything abnormal beyond the usual post-vaccination symptoms, they can
always come to the hospital and report,” he said.
An
additional 1.26 million doses expected from COVAX at the end of May may be
wasted if people continue shunning the vaccine, said Shouts Simeza, president
of the National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives in Malawi, adding that a
possible solution is making vaccinations mandatory for all who are eligible.
Trying
to increase coverage, Malawi’s government has relaxed vaccine eligibility rules
to include everyone aged 18 and older after initially focusing on priority
groups such as health workers.
The
East African nation of Uganda, which also is struggling to increase vaccine
rollout among priority groups, may soon act similarly, said Emmanuel
Ainebyoona, spokesman for the Ministry of Health. Ugandans under age 50 have
shown interest in getting vaccinated, raising hope that doses will not expire
unused, he said.
Uganda
has received 964,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the only one available
in the country. But just over 230,000 doses have been administered since March
10.
Health
authorities had planned to give at least 500,000 people their first shot in a
first round of vaccinations targeting front-line workers, people with
underlying health conditions and those 50 and older.
But,
amid a slow rollout, they are now reaching out to popular “influencers,”
celebrities such as a kickboxer who was photographed getting a shot last week.
“The
uptake is gradually improving,” Ainebyoona said, noting that “communications
interventions” have proved necessary to get more Ugandans to embrace the
vaccination campaign.
A
few thousand people are inoculated daily at centers put up across the country,
including inside regional hospitals. The local Daily Monitor newspaper recently
reported that more than 280,000 doses will likely expire by July at the current
average of about 6,000 shots used each day.
Vaccination
teams, lacking official records of eligible residents, simply sit and wait for
people who may not show up.
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