EXPERTS’ concession is that COVID-19 vaccine hoarding and stockpiling by high-income countries is inimical to stemming the acute phase of the pandemic and global safety from the infection that has caused over 3.3 million deaths
Director of African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID), Professor Christian Happi, speaking at a virtual Vaccinate our World PAN-African press conference by AIDS HEALTH CARE FOUNDATION (AHF), stated that the world may end up with bigger problems if vaccines are not quickly deployed and large number of Africans vaccinated.
According to him, “we may end up having a situation whereby we have new variants that may not respond to developed vaccines because transmission is still ongoing. It is very important to address the whole issue of delay in sharing, distribution or administration of the vaccine. That is the reason why we think vaccine nationalism is really not something that we should encourage.”
Professor Happi said so long as 80 per cent of the world is not vaccinated and quickly, even countries stocking vaccines will not be safe from new variants of the virus that may not respond to currently available vaccines.
Vice-President for Research at the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) from South Africa, Professor Jeffreys Mphahlele, stated that Africa’s COVAX facility had suffered many setbacks from counties hoarding the vaccine that have prevented vaccine manufacturers from sharing their vaccines with the facility.
Professor Mphahlele decried these countries rather than vaccinating the younger population that are less vulnerable than sharing with low income counties with poor access to vaccines and slow vaccination particular with India, a major vaccine producer shut down vaccine production for COVAX facilities due to its domestic challenges.
Mphahlele, a member of South Africa’s ministerial advisory committee on COVID-19 vaccines said that with the slow rate of vaccination in developing countries like Africa, the continent will not be able to catch up with the rest of the world and be able to vaccinate enough population to reach herd immunity.
Bureau Chief of AHF Africa from Uganda, Dr Penninah Lutung, stated that currently, less than two out of every 100 persons are vaccinated against COVID-19 in Africa and there is a lot of uncertainty that Africa would have received enough vaccines by the end of the year.
Dr Lutung declared that “With this continuous inequality in vaccines hoarding and the situation in places like India, Africa will be the breeding ground for new variants of COVID-19.”
Dr Lutung said that a way forward will be raising 12 billion US dollars for procuring and vaccinating in Africa, eliminate all restrictions information or data sharing to tackle the pandemic and promotion of international cooperation rather than politics to act as the driving force to ending the pandemic.
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