The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has entreated African countries that have not recorded the South African coronavirus variant to go ahead and use the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine when it is made available.
The remarks comes a day after South Africa announced it would not use the AstraZeneca vaccine, citing a study that suggested the jab was ineffective at preventing mild to moderate disease caused by the variant.
Africa CDC Director, John Nkengasong said seven countries on the 54-nation African continent have reported the variant and none besides South Africa is “overwhelmed” by it. The seven countries are South Africa, Ghana, Botswana, Comoros, Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia. He said no other country apart from South Africa has expressed concerns about the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Meanwhile, in a separate briefing, WHO Africa Chief, Matshidiso Moeti added Tanzania to that list, saying two travellers from the country had been found to be carrying the South African variant in “the UK, I believe.” Tanzania’s president has denied that COVID-19 exists in the East African nation, which has not updated its number of infections since April.
The Africa CDC advised African countries that have recorded the South African variant to speed up plans to introduce all COVID-19 vaccines that have received emergency use authorization or approval by regulatory authorities. The organization also employed them to consider the vaccines’ effectiveness against variants first reported in South Africa and the UK.
“AstraZeneca doses are expected to start arriving in other parts of Africa in the next two weeks”, the Africa CDC Director said.
In the WHO’S briefing, Matshidiso Moeti posited that countries could go ahead with the AstraZeneca vaccine even if the South African variant is circulating widely.
“What’s important is the opportunity is there to continue to study the vaccine and its effectiveness.”
Dr Moeti
Dr Moeti added that the organization is looking forward to a significant rollout of vaccines in March, adding that 34 of Africa’s countries now have their rollout plans in place.
Equatorial Guinea has announced that it had received 100,000 doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine. It is the first West African country to receive a large amount of the vaccine. Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue said he will be the first to be vaccinated.
Africa CDC Chief, Dr Nkengasong revealed that the African continent has seen an average 18% decrease in new virus cases over the past four weeks, calling it “encouraging.” He however warned that studies show more people have been exposed to the virus than the 3.7 million cases confirmed, and “we are definitely not counting all the deaths, especially in the second wave.”
Africa has more than 96,000 confirmed deaths, and the WHO Africa Chief said the continent in the coming week will pass the “devastating marker” of 100,000 deaths. Sunday, 14th February will mark one year since the first virus case was confirmed on the African continent, in Egypt.
Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said at the WHO briefing that “Africa has much to be proud of for the initial response, and it certainly did much better than Europe.”
He urged an equitable global approach to COVID-19 vaccines as rich countries have secured the bulk of doses, recalling that it took nearly a decade during the earlier years of the HIV pandemic for a significant number of people on the African continent to access HIV drugs.
“We cannot afford today to have the same pace and time for access to (COVID-19) vaccines.”
Peter Piot
