Photographer: Rodger Bosch / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Rodger Bosch / AFP / Getty Images
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Some of South Africa’s most senior medical and academic leaders have asked President Cyril Ramaphosa to fire government officials for delays in obtaining the Covid-19 vaccines, saying his actions will cause thousands of deaths and incalculable economic damage.
The demand was made in an opinion article published by News24, the country’s largest Internet news site, and signed by nine people, including Glenda Gray, the chairman of the South African Medical Research Council, and employees of other organizations. institutions, hospitals and universities.
While at least 29 countries, from Mexico to Germany, have begun to inoculate their populations against the virus, South Africa has yet to conclude any direct supply agreements with pharmaceutical companies. The country has ordered vaccines from Covax facilities, an initiative designed to ensure equitable access to vaccines, but they will cover only 10% of the population of around 60 million and will arrive in the second quarter of the year. Still, a charity canceled the deposit after the government missed the deadline it announced.
Failure to obtain vaccines is an “unforgivable failure, which will be measured in lives lost by the thousands, diseases for tens of thousands, a failed health care system and profound and continuing economic damage,” said health leaders and academics in the article. opinion. Ramaphosa will have to “wield the ax against the members and officials of his administration who are responsible for this dangerous fiasco and immediately correct the course”.
To see South Africa’s progress in vaccine procurement, click here
Tyrone Seale, an interim spokesman for Ramaphosa, said he can comment after the presidency examines the article. The health ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
South Africa, with more than 1.09 million infections confirmed by Covid-19 and 29,175 deaths, is the hardest hit country on the African continent. Its economy probably contracted more in nine decades last year, according to government estimates.
The criticisms are compounded by attacks on the vaccination strategy of both opposition parties and the country’s largest labor unions, which are allies of the ruling party.
With the largest HIV epidemic in the world and hundreds of thousands of people suffering from tuberculosis, South Africa has a sophisticated health system with leading scientists. At least three Covid-19 vaccine trials are underway in the country and Johnson & Johnson has agreed to have 300 million of its Covid-19 vaccines done in one Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd. factory in the country when the injection was approved.
For the progress of global vaccines, click here
“Public recognition by employees that they did not think it prudent to start bilateral negotiations with vaccine suppliers because they could not ‘risk’ asking for vaccines in case they do not work is shockingly false,” said health leaders.
They also criticized the so-called ministerial advisory committee, a group of scientists appointed by the Minister of Health, Zweli Mkhize, for echoing the government’s arguments.
Gray and François Venter, an academic who signed the opinion article, were removed from the committee last year by Mkhize. Both had already criticized the government’s approach to the virus.
(Updates infections, deaths in the sixth paragraph)