Distrust fuels ambivalence over Covid-19 vaccines

WHILE people around the world wait impatiently to be vaccinated against Covid-19, an inoculation site in Senegal was empty on a recent day – a sign of the ambivalence nationwide.

Though jabs are free and available without appointment at the Mbao health post, outside the capital Dakar, there were no takers, leaving nurses to chat to pass the time.

Shots also did not appear to be in high demand at other Senegalese health centres visited by AFP.

“People are in no rush to get vaccinated,” one health worker in Mbao said on condition of anonymity, because she was not authorised to speak to journalists.

“A woman told me she doesn’t trust it because it’s free. She’s waiting for it to be sold in pharmacies to buy it.”

The reticence in the West African nation is multi-layered.

Many Senegalese have had doubts about the seriousness of Covid-19 from the start, and widespread scepticism about vaccines only grew with concerns over the AstraZeneca jab’s possible link to rare blood clots.

The shot by the British-Swedish firm is one of two available in Senegal.

Vaccination officials in the religious city of Touba were quoted in local media saying that after a good start, supplies of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine and AstraZeneca jab were now languishing.

They warned against the risk of losing a portion of the 7000 remaining doses of AstraZeneca out of 8000 delivered, since they could expire.

National vaccination co-ordinator Dr Ousseynou Badiane said there had been some difficulty in convincing people. The government had planned to vaccinate as a priority health personnel, the elderly and those with co-morbidities, which amounts to around 3% of the population. “We have already administered more than 70% of the doses we were supposed to administer,” he said.

But the government quickly increased availability to 20% of the population since “priority people did not show up”.

Authorities had initially set up online appointment booking, but when vaccination services called the registrants, some “asked if it was AstraZeneca” and preferred to wait, he said.

Without official communication, word began to spread on social media that it was possible to be vaccinated without an appointment – a godsend for some.

“I came to be vaccinated to protect myself,” said Rokhaya Samb, who was leaving a centre in Dakar. “My husband doesn’t want to be immunised, and when I came he tried to talk me out of it.”

About 15 people had shown up that day, including expatriates who live or work in the neighbourhood. At the beginning, the wait had been a few hours. Now it’s reduced to around 30 minutes at most.

Senegal has acquired 200 000 doses of Sinopharm on its own, 10% of which has been donated to neighbouring Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.

It has received more than 300000 doses of the AstraZeneca jab as part of the international Covax programme intended to ensure access for poor countries. More than 362000 people have been vaccinated out of a population of around 17 million.

“There is reluctance, but it is difficult to measure,” said Badiane, the national co-ordinator.

On the positive side, the number of infections and deaths has been decreasing in Senegal for weeks.