Scepticism of the jab high in SA

As a nurse in a country battling deadly diseases, Rich Sicina sometimes vaccinates other South Africans but he says there is no way he will take a Covid-19 shot – he doesn’t believe it will be safe or effective.

South Africa’s decision on Sunday to suspend plans to roll out AstraZeneca’s vaccine, after data showed it may not offer sufficient protection against the country’s dominant coronavirus variant, has only added to Sicina’s concerns. “We do not trust these politicians,” he said.

Many South Africans agree. The Indaba nurses union, to which Sicina belongs, has advised its 17 000 members to boycott the vaccine.

Two polls, a global one by Ipsos and a national one by SA fintech start-up CompariSure, in January suggested half of South Africans would refuse the vaccine.

A University of Johannesburg survey, with the biggest sample size of 10 000, put the number more optimistically at a third.

Covid-19 has hit SA harder than anywhere else on the continent, infecting nearly 1.5 million and killing more than 46 000, while a more infectious variant that evolved here has spread around the world.

SA hopes to vaccinate 40 million people to achieve some herd immunity but has yet to administer a shot.

Efforts to eradicate certain diseases have foundered before in Africa when a section of the population rejects vaccination – often driven by religious beliefs and mistrust of Western pharmaceutical companies.

In 2003, Muslim clerics instigated a boycott of polio shots in northern Nigeria. There have been similar appeals against Covid-19 shots. Tanzanian President John Magufuli told citizens to avoid the vaccines – calling them a foreign plot.

The governor of Nigeria’s Kogi state, Yahaya Bello, said in January vaccine makers “want to ... introduce the disease that will kill you”.

In December, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng prayed that “any vaccine that is of the devil ... may it be destroyed by fire”, in remarks he declined to recant despite fierce criticism.

Such concerns are not uncommon on a continent where sickness is often seen as resulting from supernatural forces – and where big pharmaceutical companies have run dubious clinical trials resulting in deaths.

Added to the mix are conspiracy theories available online, some from antivaxxers.

The UJ survey found that less-educated people were more willing to be vaccinated and white South Africans, who tend to be wealthier and have access to better schools, were more hesitant than blacks. –