Gulf Today

Vaccine worries in Africa as India struggles

-

Africa is watching aghast as India struggles with coronaviru­s, fearing a long-running shorfall in the Indian-made vaccines that it needs to help shield its people. Oten dubbed the “world’s pharmacy”, India is one of the biggest suppliers of the Astrazenec­a vaccine under the Covax programme to help immunisati­on in poorer countries.

But India has been hammered by an explosive growth in infections — accelerate­d, say scientists, by a new variant. The country has recorded 22 million cases out of a population of 1.3 billion, inflicting a death toll of nearly a quarter of a million.

Ater sending more than 60 million doses abroad, India announced at the end of March that it was delaying overseas supplies as it works to meet its own needs. African Union (AU) health ministers held emergency talks online on Saturday to discuss the vaccine gap.

“The vaccines situation is extremely complex now because of the situation in India,” said Cameroonia­n virologist John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the AU’S health watchdog.

“We are hoping that there will be a continuous supply of vaccines through Covax from India, but we are watching in total horror and disbelief what is going on in India and we don’t expect that vaccines will be shipped out of India anytime soon.”

Of all the continents, Africa has been relatively spared the worst of the pandemic so far with just over 124,000 deaths officially recorded for 4.6 million cases.

On the other hand, Africa has overcrowde­d cities, with slums that are a breeding ground for the virus, and a fragile health infrastruc­ture — risk factors that also Feature prominentl­y in India’s tragic experience.

The continent has administer­ed 19.6 million doses, or just two per cent of the global total — according to the World Health Organisati­on (WHO), 80 per cent of doses have been administer­ed in wealthier countries.

Lacking the means to manufactur­e their own vaccine in bulk, African countries have so far had to turn to the open market or the Covax scheme.

The AU’S African Vaccine Acquisitio­n Task Team (AVATT) hopes to acquire vaccines through its own programme by the end of July or early August, and Nkengasong said that while he hoped that date could be brought forward he could make no guarantees.

Nkengasong said he did not expect the vaccine market to open up again until the third quarter, and urged African leaders to adjust their strategy accordingl­y. The virus variant wreaking havoc in India has already been detected in several African countries, notably Kenya, South Africa and Uganda.

Nkengasong pushed for a three-pronged strategy — step up testing; improve prevention through awareness programmes; and boost supplies of vaccines and oxygen. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu­s pleaded with African countries to maintain the utmost vigilance until the vaccine crunch is resolved.

“What’s happening now in many other parts of the world can happen in our Africa if we let down our guard,” he told the AU meeting. “In many countries, the emergence of rapidly spreading variants, combined with premature easing of public health and social measures and the inequitabl­e distributi­on of vaccines is having tragic consequenc­es.”

The AU ministeria­l meeting in the meantime urged strict respect of social distancing guidelines in a continent where there is some resistance to vaccines. The Democratic Republic of Congo announced at the end of April that it had “redeployed” 1.3 million “surplus” Astrazenec­a vaccines to five neighbouri­ng countries.

The health ministry admited that some sections of the population had simply refused to have the jab.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Bahrain