VACCINE EQUITY
Questions have been raised about whether New Zealanders will have equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines, as different people are likely to receive different jabs, some of which could be less effective than others.
The Government has agreed to purchase – pending safety approval from medicines regulator Medsafe – four types of Covid-19 vaccines for Kiwis and residents of several Pacific Island nations. Clinical trials for all the vaccines are still ongoing.
However, recent studies have indicated the AstraZeneca vaccine, of which the Government has ordered 7.6 million doses, enough to immunise 3.8 million people, may be only 62 per cent effective at preventing transmission of the virus.
Meanwhile, the PfizerBioNTech vaccine, of which the country has secured 1.5 million doses (for 750,000 people), appears to have a 90 per cent efficacy rate.
More than 10 million doses of the Novavax vaccine (for 5.36 million people) and 5 million single-dose vaccines from Janssen Pharmaceutica have also been ordered for later in 2021.
The first shipment of PfizerBioNTech vaccines is expected to arrive by March and border workers will be first in line to get them. The general public is likely to be immunised against Covid-19 from July, once larger orders of the various vaccines land.
Although the criteria that will be used to decide who gets which vaccine is yet to be released, experts told Stuff it was likely logistics factors might come into play. For example, it would make little sense to ship vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to the Pacific Islands given they have to be stored at temperatures colder than Antarctica, Dr Api Talemaitoga, an Auckland-based GP who is on the Government’s
Immunisation Implementation Advisory Group, said.
A study had shown Ma¯ ori and Pacific people may be at higher risk of dying or becoming seriously ill than other ethnic groups if they contract Covid-19.
In light of the findings, Dr Sue Crengle (Ka¯ i Tahu), an associate professor at the Dunedin school of medicine’s Nga¯i Tahu Ma¯ori health research unit and co-lead of Te Ro¯ pu¯ Whakakaupapa Uruta¯ (National Ma¯ori Pandemic Group), hoped the Government would consider prioritising Ma¯ori and Pacific people older than 50, alongside people over 65 from other ethnic groups.
Professor David Murdoch, a clinical microbiologist and dean of Otago University’s Christchurch campus, warned there still was not enough evidence to confirm whether any of the vaccines would eliminate Covid19. What was clear, was that both the Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines were effective in preventing severe infections. ‘‘That is still good and that is still going to achieve what we want it to achieve,’’ he said.
A Ministry of Health spokesperson said Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles, such as tino rangatiratanga, options (Ma¯ori sovereignty) and equity were central to its Covid-19 immunisation strategy. It was committed to working with Ma¯ori health providers to ensure it reached groups the health system had often failed, such as Ma¯ ori living in remote rural areas.