COVID-19 pandemic : The need for a strong social services system
THE COVID-19 pandemic led to the imposition of lockdowns across the world which was followed by restrictions on businesses, closure of borders and disruption of most social and economic activities. Essential services such as hospitals, pharmacies, agriculture, mining activities and retailers were left open.
In Zimbabwe, this was done against the background that most citizens are small-to-medium entrepreneurs comprised mostly of unemployed in the national population. This group of people is the same which also head households and are the breadwinners for most families. The elderly, particularly women, are the ones who make up the vendors and cross-border traders whose activities were affected by the lockdown. In 2019, we learned that millions of dollars were squandered at Nssa which left millions of the elderly without their hard-earned pensions, thereby increasing the vulnerability of beneficiaries to the vagaries of the pandemic.
Lessons from the West are that both developed and developing countries should establish a strong social services system which caters for everyone, but in particular the most vulnerable groups including but not limited to the elderly, people living with disabilities, girls and women, youths, vendors among others. If Zimbabwe had built such a system from its rich mineral resource base, tax revenues, imports and other economic activities, the shocks emanating from the pandemic and lockdown would have been mitigated. The monthly allowances for the elderly and cushionery measures for SMEs could have been much higher and much more adequate to cushion them from the effects of the lockdown. The $300 allowances announced by government in 2020 were not adequate. It is high time that as a country we reflect on where we want to allocate our resources.
The need for a robust, efficient and effective healthcare system
Perhaps one topical issue which dominated the news during the lockdown period was the constant threats to down tools by healthcare workers in Zimbabwe. This emanated from the fact that Zimbabwean hospitals did not have the requisite equipment and protective wear to enable doctors and nurses to carry-out their duties without fear of contracting the COVID-19 virus.
The biggest lesson is that the government is endowed with the responsibility to build a robust, efficient and effective healthcare system which caters for everyone, both the patients and the healthcare workers. Upon the advent of the second wave, there were concerns about the acute shortages of beds, healthcare workers, respiratory machines and other equipment to cater for COVID-19 patients. When the hard lockdown was reintroduced by the Health and Child Care ministry and began on January 5 2021, the ensuing days were difficult because people who had ailing patients ran around looking for ways to assist their relatives. In some few days after January 5 2021, social media was awash with requests for vacant beds and ventilators which
were not available at COVID-19 centres.
Private companies took advantage of the situation and advertised emergency oxygen kits at a cost of US$950 each and an oxygen concentrator at a ridiculous cost of US$2 200 (Intelli-Africa Solutions, 2021) each, which obviously was not within the reach of many. No one knows where and how these companies were accessing these components. Some people resorted to home-based care because local hospitals were overwhelmed. Some people even transported their loved ones from small cities to Harare due to incapacity of district and provincial hospitals. Many did not make it. The COVID-19 pandemic did not bring these problems, but rather exposed weaknesses in Zimbabwe’s healthcare system. Because we are not sure when the pandemic is going to end or when a similar one is going to emerge, it is important that Zimbabwe engage in an honest and candid discussion on its ailing health sector. If Zimbabwe had a thriving health sector in the fashion of the one we had in the 1990s, some lives would have been saved due to availability of ventilators and other support systems which COVID-19 patients require. However, most people faced the ailments alone and perished at home.
Development of African-based vaccines
Since the emergence of the COVID-19 virus in early 2019, governments and scientist across the world became pre-occupied with finding a vaccine in the face of unprecedented deaths. Since COVID-19 was new, it took almost a year for scientists to announce that they had made a vaccine for COVID-19. The assumption is that finding a vaccine will prevent uninfected people from contracting the virus just as yellow fever, polio and measles vaccines are administered before becoming sick. However, the main challenge which has always engulfed Africa is that the continent has always relied on vaccines from Western and most recently Eastern countries such as China.
Even though South Africa announced that it has been working on its own vaccine, no news have been received that the vaccine has actually been developed and approved.
Ahead of the pack in finding one has been the Oxford University-AstraZeneca (UK), Pfizer-BioNTech (USA-Germany), Sinovac (China), Sputnik-V (Russia), Moderna (USA) and Johnson and Johnson (USA). The trend which is visible here is that Western and Easternbased companies have already developed vaccines which were pre-ordered and have already been bought by the wealthiest countries in the world.
Sadly, Africa will remain at the receiving end to the detriment of our own people. What hurts the most is that scientists who are working for these companies are Africans. For example, Dr Tatenda Shopera confirmed on his Twitter account that he was happy to have been part of the team which developed the Pfizer vaccine that was approved in December 2020. Sadly, as Africans, why are we not investing in our own scientists, research institutes and laboratories to develop such vaccines so as to make them cheaper and more accessible to our own folk? The dependency syndrome is perpetuating by both complacency and ignorance in investing in things which actually serve our own people. Unfortunately, Africa relies more on donations rather than capacity development which is the death of our continent. This culture of dependency, just like in the past, will keep Africa trapped in debt because due to the high demand for the vaccines, the price we pay will be also very high in the form of the next generations’ mineral resources and anything else which the supplier demands. This needs to stop!
The need to deal with a growing trend of misinformation
Upon the emergence of vaccines, a plethora of conspiracy theories started popping up particularly in Africa that governments had received money and there was a plan to wipe-out millions of Africans from the face of earth through the vaccine. In the past as alluded to earlier on in the article, Africa has relied on vaccines produced in Western countries and this has saved a lot of people, particularly children. ARVs are predominantly manufactured in countries such as India and people in Africa use them with ease. So, what is the difference with COVID-19 vaccines? In my view, it is important to distinguish facts from myths because information on vaccines is there in the public realm for people to come to conclusions. No vaccine is perfect and none has been introduced before without its own challenges. Vaccines are perfected over time.
People who are not comfortable with taking the vaccine should not be forced to do so and being injected with one should remain voluntary. History has taught us that all vaccines go through a rigorous verification process and they are safe once health boards have approved them.
However, people react differently to the vaccine and some even die after taking it. I stand to be corrected.
These are my humble observations and submissions.
Tendaishe Tlou is a human rights and peace building practitioner. He writes here in his personal capacity