Fewer than one in ten Africans are fully vaccinated, and over 32% of the continent’s countries have not even used half of the COVID-19 vaccine doses received thus far. While more pills are filtering in now than earlier this year, Africa is confronted with another issue: Donors are donating dosages that are nearing their expiration date. In nations whose health systems are insufficiently developed to support rapid deployment, governments are increasingly refusing to accept donated vaccines with a relatively short shelf life.
Here are some reasons stated by bodies, or key stakeholders across the African health sector
- The Africa CDC revealed Wednesday at the International Conference on Public Health in Africa that it is requesting countries to deny COVID-19 vaccines that could become obsolete in a short period of time.
- In Nigeria, where fewer than 2% of the population has had a complete COVID-19 vaccination, the government stated that 1 million doses obtained from donors have expired and will be destroyed.
- The Democratic Republic of Congo said in April that it will return 1.3 million doses obtained from the COVAX vaccine-sharing initiative after finding that it couldn’t use them before they expired. Burundi has the lowest vaccination rate of any country, with less than 1% of almost half a million doses of COVID-19 vaccinations provided so far.
- Vaccine waste, however, is not unique to Africa. In January, British officials predicted that just approximately 10% of vaccines will be used. In April, France’s health minister claimed that 25% of AstraZeneca, 20% of Moderna, and 7% of Pfizer vaccines were thrown away.
- “We’ve gone from receiving 2 to 3 million doses per week to receiving around 20 million doses per week,” says Dr. Richard Mihigo, WHO’s regional office for Africa’s immunization and vaccines development program coordinator. However, the increased supply is not without its drawbacks.
- Vaccine storage, shipping, and disinformation, as well as syringe and health worker shortages for large-scale vaccination campaigns, are just a few of the issues that might cause dose administration to be delayed. Africa CDC is also holding “microplanning” workshops to assist countries in dealing with specific concerns.
- According to WHO, Africa is on track to fall far short of global vaccination targets. Until May, the continent is not anticipated to achieve the average rate of full immunization among its populations, which is also the WHO’s global year-end objective of 40%. It is also not expected to reach the worldwide midyear objective of 70% by August 2024, which was set for 2022.
