“What we’ve done in the spirit of providing guidance to the
countries is to say that if the variant in South Africa is predominant, then
the AstraZeneca vaccine should not be applied - it should be used elsewhere on
the continent,” Nkengasong said. “But we remain confident that the AstraZeneca
vaccine will play a major role in our vaccination program across the
continent.”
This comes after South Africa said it plans to share one
million unwanted doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine with other countries in the
African Union after preliminary trial data suggested the vaccine provided only
“minimal protection” against mild and moderate Covid-19 from the variant first
identified in South Africa.
Nkengasong also warned that “vaccine passport” schemes imposed
by Western countries could impact travel to Africa and exacerbate inequality.
“One of our greatest concern is that the vaccine situation
will continue to exacerbate the inequality gap that exists in the world,
especially the north-south divide,” Nkengasong said.
“And my greatest fear also is that once the U.S. and Europe
gets their vaccines they’ll begin to impose the need to have a vaccine
certificate to travel, and that will become extremely complicated for Africans
to travel across the world. That is why we should ask a collective of the
continent, and of course in partnership with the developed world, to make sure
that Africa has timely access to vaccines to make its vaccination targets.”
RICHARD QUEST, HOST OF QUEST MEANS BUSINESS: But the reason,
of course, I’m here today is, well, Africa needs vaccines. The number of
vaccines that have been given by the international agency of COVAX, along with
donations from China or Russia, are, frankly, pathetically small compared to
the number that the continent needs.
And I discussed this with the head of the African CDC who joined me this morning. And I pointed out to him that, at the end of the day, they were dealing in the 100,000 here, a couple of hundred thousand there, and what they really needed for Africa was millions.
JOHN NKENGASONG, DIRECTOR, AFRICA CDC: Our target is to get
to 60 percent in two years, but we’ve also set a sub-target that requires that
we immunize up to about 35 to 40 percent of our population in 2021, if we have
a chance, to be ahead of the pandemic.
QUEST: So what do you need? COVAX is obviously the principal
vehicle through which South Africa is getting their vaccines. What more do you
need?
NKENGASONG: Remember that COVAX is screened to supply us
with at least 25 percent of the vaccines that we need. We have also, as a
continent, established what we call the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team,
which we are striving to get supplementary doses of vaccines. And we’ve secured in -- close to about 500
million doses of vaccines.
As I indicated, in the next week or so, we’ll start the
distribution. So, if you add the efforts from COVAX and those from the AVAC,
the African immune initiative (ph), I think that will make us begin to make
some very good progress.
QUEST: And we talk
about the South African variant now, which is worrying because it seems to be –
the vaccines seem to be less effective. Is the South African variant the one
that you’re expecting to be the predominant variant in Africa?
NKENGASONG: We – the
simple answer is, we don’t know. I mean, what we know is what we have
documented, which is that the variant that – it was initially described in
South Africa. We also now know that the variants from the so called – the U.K.
variant has also been identified in some parts of Africa.
Now, we really don’t know the dynamics of how these variants
will evolve over time. In terms of, will there be new variants, we just don’t
know. In terms of, will these variants overtake the pandemic in other African
countries, we just don’t know.
But what we’ve done in the spirit of providing guidance to
the countries is to say that if the variant in South Africa is predominant,
then the AstraZeneca vaccine should not be applied, it should be used elsewhere
on the continent.
But we remain confident that the AstraZeneca vaccine will be
– play a major role in our vaccination program across the continent.
QUEST: The number one
problem here seems to be that a worsening bipolar world, the haves and the
have-nots, is going to get worse. The – as Europe and the developed world and
the U.S. all reach some form of immunity, and life gets something back to
normal, Africa, through no fault of its own, is going to be hamstrung for some
years.
NKENGASONG: That is
absolutely one of our greatest concerns, that the vaccine situation will
continue to exacerbate the gap – the inequality gap that exists in the world –
especially the north-south divide.
And my greatest fear also is that once the U.S. and north –
and Europe gets their vaccines they’ll begin to impose the need to have a
vaccine certificate to travel, and that will become extremely complicated for
Africans to travel across the world.
And I think that is why we should ask a collective of the
continent, and of course in partnership with the developed world, make sure
that Africa has timely access to vaccines to make its vaccination targets.
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