By Paul Carsten and Alexander Winning
ABUJA / JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Vaccines are not yet the way out of Africa to the pandemic, as they may take weeks or even months before the first doses start to arrive, health officials said after the African Union on Thursday ( AU) guarantee 270 million doses to the continent where around 30,000 a day are infected.
Africa has not yet started vaccination and there is concern that more prosperous regions are gaining an unfair advantage in the global fight against COVID-19.
Africa’s second wave of coronaviruses is infecting twice as many people a day as the height of the first wave last year, and has not peaked, said John Nkengasong, director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at UA at an online press conference.
On Wednesday, AU President South Africa said doses of the vaccine would be provided this year by Pfizer, AstraZeneca – through the Serum Institute of India – and Johnson & Johnson.
The 270 million injections, if given two per person, would cover only about 10% of Africa’s roughly 1.3 billion people. South Africa did not say when the first doses would arrive, but said at least 50 million would be available between April and June.
They are an addition to the injections that the continent should receive from the COVAX Facility, a global vaccine distribution initiative co-led by the World Health Organization.
“We should not see vaccines as a magical solution for now, it will take time for vaccines to be implemented in a way that we have collective immunity,” said Nkengasong.
Infections exceeded 3.1 million, with more than 74,600 deaths in the course of the pandemic.
MANAGE DISAPPOINTMENT
WHO director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said in a separate statement that African countries should use the time before vaccines arrive to prepare for launch.
“We need to … manage our disappointment, as we see richer regions and countries starting to vaccinate while we wait a few weeks to a few months. I strongly believe that the wait gives us the opportunity to reinforce our readiness,” said Moeti.
Nkengasong said that nations should start placing orders and approving vaccines as a block or blocks, to speed up dose distribution. “There is a fierce urgency,” he said.
The head of Africa’s CDC dismissed concerns that a lack of deep-frozen chain storage infrastructure would prevent countries from buying and using vaccines that need to be kept at extremely low temperatures – Pfizer and Moderna.
Countries would store and distribute these vaccines in cities, where demand is high and freezers can be maintained, he said.
Moeti said that African countries could start receiving the first doses of COVAX by the end of March, with larger deliveries by June.
Across Africa it could get 600 million doses of COVAX this year, she said, adding that the continent still needs to secure more vaccines.
(Reporting by Paul Carsten in Abuja and Alexander Winning in Johannesburg; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Alexandra Hudson)