Posted February 11, 2021 by Venke Kofod Christiansen Africa

Africa’s uphill battle to secure COVID-19 vaccine

Africa's uphill battle to secure COVID-19 vaccine

As news of a COVID-19 vaccine broke at the end of last year, it brought great hope to many across the globe. However, for others it signaled the beginning of a new wave of problems.

At the annual Paris Peace Forum, held in November 2020, panelist Mo Ibrahim (founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, a governance and leadership in Africa organization) voiced his concerns over the accessibility of a vaccine in Africa. Major concerns were linked to the possible nationalization of a vaccine, access and funding, and the continent’s capacities to facilitate large quantities of a vaccine (Surget & Tsoukala-Steggell, 2020).

Further reports warned of the dangers of Africa not having access to a COVID-19 vaccine. Also, in November 2020, Dr. John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), commented that failure to access vaccines would not only lead to thousands more deaths, but the impact will also create economic downfalls as a consequence of trade and movement disruption. He added, “I have seen how Africa is neglected when drugs are available,” and that the effect of travel restrictions for non-vaccinated populations will be “extremely dangerous” (Lawal, 2020).

Cases
As predicted, since the rollout of vaccinations started and continues in nations across the world, Africa is being left behind. With the COVID infection rate increasing across the continent, the urgency to begin the vaccine rollout is growing too.

Currently, there is an upward trend of coronavirus cases across Africa, which is being attributed to the emergence of a new variant of the disease, as believed by experts (Mwai, 2021).

The number of coronavirus deaths is currently 88,993 across the continent, with over 3.5 million recorded cases so far. South Africa is the worst affected nation, with 1.44 million cases, and 43,105 deaths (CDC, 2021). Even though these figures are high, irregular levels of testing between regions and limitations in testing for certain variants mean that the numbers shown may not be accurately depicting the scale of the virus across the continent (Mwai, 2021).

An uphill battle
One of the first hurdles Africa faces is securing funding to be able to access the vaccine. The World Health Organization (WHO) led Gavi COVID-19 Vaccines Advance Market Commitment (COVAX) is currently enabling low and middle-income countries to receive donor-funded doses of vaccines (Berkley, 2020). Of the two billion secured doses, 690 million are set to be distributed to lower-income African countries (McSweeney and Chingono, 2021).

Whilst COVAX will be able to provide some of Africa’s population with vaccinations, the current number of secured doses will only be enough to vaccinate 27% (McSweeney & Chingono) of the continent’s large 1.2 billion population (Dyer, 2021). This leaves the remaining doses to be acquired by other means, predominantly through government funding.

At present, funding is not the only obstacle limiting Africa’s vaccination rollout, as vaccine hoarding is becoming a major problem. Vaccine hoarding, or ‘vaccine nationalism,’ happens when richer countries buy large quantities of vaccine doses, preventing lower-income countries from being able to access them (McSweeney & Chingono, 2021).

At the moment, North America, Oceania, and Europe have secured doses which far exceed the number of necessary vaccinations of their total populations (McSweeney & Chingono, 2021). Israel, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States are also currently leading in the proportion of their population which has been vaccinated, all of which are high-income countries (Our World in Data, 2021).

In South Africa, the worst affected country in the continent, the government has recently purchased doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. However, out of the 40 million people it set out to vaccinate, they have only been able to secure enough for 10 million people. Furthermore, it has recently come to light that South Africa has paid more than double for per dose (US$5.25) than the European Union (US$2.15) (Dyer, 2021).

So far, five other African nations have also began administering vaccinations. Whilst Seychelles acquired China’s Sinopham vaccine, Mauritius was donated 100,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca by the Indian government. Algeria and Morroco have also began immunizations (Our World in Data, 2021), whilst Guinea has vaccinated 25 of its senior officials at the end of December 2020 (Boubacar, 2020) using the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. Guinea is now in discussions to attain further vaccines for its population from four different suppliers (Taylor & Paquette, 2021).

Unfortunately, with new strains of the virus arising, the efficacy of existing vaccine can be compromised. A recent study has found that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, which has been acquired by the South African government, does not provide substantial protection against the virus’ new variant which has been found in parts of Africa (Mwai, 2021). This highlights the need for speed in the race to immunize populations in the region before the virus continues to transform.

Is there a way forward?

It has been suggested that a solution to achieving global immunity is for nations to adopt a multilateral approach. If higher income countries collectively contributed US$27 billion to COVAX, the program would be able to fund vaccines to all the low-income countries requiring assistance. It has been reported that this sum could ultimately save the global economy US$9.2 trillion (Dyer, 2021).

Despite early warnings and the need to protect human life in the current pandemic, financial inequality is proving to be the catalyst of delay in Africa’s immunization program. It is vital that more action is taken to ensure that African countries can access vaccines. In the words of WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “Until we end the Cobid-19 pandemic everywhere, we won’t end it anywhere” (World Health Organization, 2020).

Article by
Costadina Tsoukala-Steggell

Africa's uphill battle to secure COVID-19 vaccine

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