Why African countries need a self-sufficient vaccine supply

This post is written by Alex Omari, East Africa Technical Family Planning and Reproductive Health Officer, Amref Health Africa and post-graduate student at the School of Government and Public Policy Indonesia.

• The problem: Globally, vaccine equity is still a major concern.

• Why it matters: Unless vaccines get to everyone, everywhere, then COVID-19 will still exist. No country can vaccinate its way out of the pandemic, not even the well-off ones.

• The solution: Countries like Japan are providing hope to the rest of the world, while some of the other counterparts are widening the gap.

When the World Health Organization (WHO) made the ‘Call to Action’ regarding Vaccine Equity in January 2021, countries were urged to work together and in solidarity to ensure that frontline workers and older people were protected from the COVID-19 scourge by getting them vaccinated within the first 100 days of the year.

According to the WHO, over half a billion COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administrated worldwide as of January 2021.

Vaccine equity is still a major concern globally with inequitable distribution of life-saving treatments being witnessed despite the call for world leaders, vaccine manufacturers, regulatory bodies, ministries of health and all governments to ensure that the COVID-19 vaccines are distributed for free at the point of care.

The EU, UK and USA have been reported to have purchased far more than they can possibly use. At least 11 countries in the world – including Chad, Burkina Faso and Papua New Guinea - have just vaccinated 1% of their population while high-income nations stocked millions of doses that are not currently being utilised. In January 2021, the WHO had warned the world of a “catastrophic moral failure” if the inequity issue was not sorted early enough.

The ‘hot bucket’

Supply chain issues, country roll-out delays and vaccine hesitancy are some of the real-time concerns that have been reported; and they should be addressed if we are to have a globally successful COVID-19 vaccination programme.

Some African nations have had to destroy 450,000 expired COVID-19 vaccine doses and yet the continent is still experiencing a massive shortage. Major reasons cited were delays in shipment of vaccine doses (mainly AstraZeneca) and delayed roll-out by countries as a result of shipment struggles. In addition, a lack of proper planning and vaccine hesitancy in the continent has made it a tall order for some countries to administer the jabs.

Inequity is everywhere, there is a ‘huge disconnect’ between nations and this isn’t a novel phenomenon. Vaccinations are happening everywhere in the United States, and Canada has procured more than 10 doses for every resident, while Haiti - a mere 1,888 miles from the USA - just received its first delivery on July 15th 2021.

COVID-19 vaccine procured doses for each Citizen by Countries

Source: Duke Global Health Innovation Center as of June 2nd 2021

The global plan to provide poorer countries with vaccines has been underfunded, and rich countries have expanded their priority reach by vaccinating their younger populations. Those as young as 12 years old, who are believed to be at extremely low risk of developing severe diseases, are being vaccinated rather than donating these jabs to the susceptible populations in low- and mid-income regions where even healthcare workers lack the essential jab. It’s a world of ‘the haves and have nots‘, and this isn’t new in global health.

Parting shot

Despite the efforts by COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility to purchase doses in bulk for the wider and larger distribution to the rest of the world, there have been unavoidable delays. Shipping and supply chain concerns are a major bottleneck in getting the vaccines to every country and into every arm. COVAX was instituted in April 2020 to prevent these kinds of scenarios from happening, but the sporadic rise in cases in the manufacturing epicentres such as India led to a complete stop of global vaccine exports of the well-renowned AstraZeneca vaccine.

While exports still remain in limbo, perhaps until towards the end of the year, the crisis is still biting hard. Countries in Africa have since resolved to purchase vaccines through the African Union since the rich are not willing to donate the excess, but the supply of the life-saving treatment is still limited in the global market.

At this point, most low- and mid-income countries, especially the African countries, have realised that they are fighting the COVID-19 battle on their own. It is due to some of these scenes and the reduction of the vaccine supplies to the continent that Africa has been prompted to explore the route of manufacturing its own vaccines and medicines through the use of vital health technologies. It might appear as a first and fast thought ahead of time due to the current limited capacity and resources, but the journey has commenced.

The vaccine shortage and most importantly the vaccine inequity crisis has moved from days to weeks, weeks to months. Let’s hope it doesn’t stretch to years. We can’t talk of global sustainable development when the poor continue to get poorer and the rich continue to eclipse themselves in another space.

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(Image Credit: Unsplash)