With the recent news that Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines both have over a 90% efficacy, and air cargo carriers are standing ready to transport them, concerns are mounting that South Africa, with no deals to access vaccines, will be left out in the scramble by richer countries to secure vaccines.
Mark Heywood, executive director of Section27 and a veteran activist, said: “Now that vaccines are becoming available, our government must use all its powers to ensure that people in South Africa have equal access. Neither price nor patents should be an obstacle, and government must start now to think about the systems that will be needed to ensure the smooth distribution of the vaccine, starting for those with the highest risk of Covid-19.”
Dr Anthonet Koen, principal investigator at a COVID vaccine trial site, said: “It’s important that we get a vaccine that’s right, especially for South Africa. We often get overseen and get left behind when it comes to life-saving treatments. If you think about HIV, we were last in line to get access to antiretrovirals, and we don’t want that to happen.”
Koen dispelled any possibility of a vaccine being available before the year is out. “We need to be realistic about this… but hopefully within the first quarter of 2021 we will have something.”
Health Minister Zweli Mkhizi reiterated that there was no vaccine for now, “so we need to adhere to containment measures”.
Not only the vaccine’s acquisition but its logistics for distribution must be taken into account. Economist Mike Schussler said, “The entire supply chain will have to be considered. What we know is that if we had to do half of the South African population it would cost about R40 billion, and that’s highly problematic and unaffordable so we have to think strategically about this.”
Source: IOL
