Africa has used 60% of its Covid-19 vaccines, but don’t get too excited

The delay in authorising Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines for release after problems at a US company making the components could impact the whole continent and not only SA’s vaccine rollout, said Dr John Nkengasong, director of the Africa CDC, at his weekly Covid-19 update on Thursday.

“SA is not the only country affected. We are looking forward to using a lot of Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Our entire AVATT (African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team) strategy is underpinned by the need to have 270 million doses from J&J, with the option of taking up another 400 million,” he said.

Nkengasong said he had been in contact with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and hoped by Friday, or early next week, to have a comprehensive picture of what was going on. He stressed, however, that safety and human life came first.

SA’s mass vaccination rollout from May 17 is at risk of stalling because of the delay in releasing 1,1 million doses of the J&J vaccine. They are ready to be shipped from Aspen Pharmacare in Gqeberha to its nine provinces when cleared by the FDA and the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra).

One vial contains five doses and can save five lives.

—  Africa CDC director John Nkengasong

Meanwhile, rising infections in southern and central Africa have driven up new cases of Covid-19 reported in Africa by 7% in the past week and 3% in the past month.

 “I can see why SA decided to adjust its (response) level last week,” said Nkengasong, who visited this country last week, after Rwanda, to look at its vaccination programme, learn lessons from it and discuss the continental manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines with French President Emmanuel Macron in Cape Town.

By Thursday, Africa had 2.9% of the world’s reported Covid-19 cases and 3,7% of its reported deaths: 4,867 million cases of Covid-19 and 131,000 reported deaths.

Vaccinations have barely increased in the past week, rising by only 0,8%, bringing to 0,54% the continent’s population who are fully vaccinated. To date, 31 million doses have been given, using up 60% of available supply.

North Africa is leading the way in giving the most doses, with Zimbabwe the only southern African country to be listed among the top five:

• Morocco: 14,82% of population fully vaccinated; 14 million doses, 86,73 % of supply;
• Zimbabwe: 2,31% of population fully vaccinated; one million doses, 53,69% of supply;
• Ethiopia 1,58% of population vaccinated; 1,8 million doses, 72,55% of supply;
• Egypt: 0,32% of population fully vaccinated; 2,4 million doses, 34,45 % of supply;
• Nigeria: 0,9% vaccinated; two million doses, 47,51% of supply;

Nkengasong reiterated that he was thrilled to see vaccines being manufactured at the Gqeberha factory on his visit.

“One vial contains five doses and can save five lives. I can’t wait to see the vaccines shipped out across the continent as part of AVATT vax acquisition,” said the Africa CDC boss, reporting that the meeting in SA was constructive.

Macron encouraged the building of partnerships for vaccine manufacturing in Africa and said this would be done as a pan-African, collective effort.

“I was very encouraged in SA by two things: the political pronouncement that we want to give every country in Africa the chance to produce a vaccine and we don’t want Europe to tell us (where to do this).

“They can leave this with us and we will come to them with a plan. This is not a competition, this is a collective approach,” said Nkengasong, adding that the parties involved were finalising a strategy and hoped to have a timeline and further details next week.

“The second extremely good news is that the leadership of Aspen and Biovac were in this mood of ‘let’s work together’ not just in SA, but across the continent.”

They can leave this with us and we will come to them with a plan. This is not a competition, this is a collective approach.

—  Africa CDC director Dr John Nkengasong

The Airbus approach, where parts are manufactured across the world and assembled in Toulouse, France, could work for Africa and vaccine manufacturing, he said.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) emergency authorisation of Sinovac was good news, said Nkengasong.

“Up to now we have been extremely constrained by the crisis that India has been going through,” he said of the delayed delivery of AstraZeneca vaccines because of the deadly surge of Covid-19 infections in India recently.

“We are hopeful new vaccines will help us to increase the uptake of vaccines on the continent ... we will also be engaged with (vaccine-sharing platform) Covax to make available a diversity of options to access vaccines.

The Africa public health chief urged everyone to get vaccinated if they could.

“I would encourage access, even to a first dose (if the second is not yet available). Just take it ... there is clear evidence that administering even one dose offers protection,” he said.