At least 2.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines donated to African countries have expired, the Africa Centers for Disease Control said Jan. 20, citing short shelf lives as the major reason.
To be realistic, donors of vaccines to the continent should send them about “three months to six months” before their expiration, Africa CDC director John Nkengasong told an online briefing. More African nations are now refusing to accept donations of vaccines that have only one or two months left before they expire, he said.
Although the expired doses account for only about 0.5% of the total donated to Africa, Nkengasong said he is unhappy to see any become invalid.
“Any dose of vaccine that expired pains me, because that is a life that can potentially be saved,” he said.
Just over 10% of Africa’s 1.3 billion people are fully vaccinated, he said. The continent’s 54 countries have confirmed 10.4 million COVID-19 cases and 235,000 deaths. However, the Omicron wave appears to be receding, with new confirmed cases down by 20% from the previous week and deaths dropping by 8%, the World Health Organization’s Africa office announced Jan. 20.
More than 60% of the 572 million vaccine doses African countries have received have already been administered, Nkengasong said. The “big fight” for African countries will be “logistics and getting doses to the population even as more supplies arrive,” he added.
“We’ve seen remarkable uptake of vaccines in settings where we engage the community… and religious leaders,” Nkengasong said, urging countries to use innovative ways to “bring vaccines to the population, and not only require that the populations should go to where the vaccines are.”
In Nigeria, for instance, an increasing number of vaccination centers are being set up at public facilities such as markets and motor parks, and health authorities are collaborating with opinion leaders to fight people’s hesitancy to get vaccinated.
Vaccines are Africa’s “best defense” against severe illness, death, and overwhelmed health systems, WHO Africa director Matshidiso Moeti said at another online briefing Jan. 20.
“Africa must not only broaden vaccinations, but also gain increased and equitable access to critical COVID-19 therapeutics to save lives and effectively combat this pandemic,” Moeti said. “The deep inequity that left Africa at the back of the queue for vaccines must not be repeated with life-saving treatments.”
In 2022, more testing is needed to fight the pandemic, said Harley Feldbaum of the Global Fund.
“We need to bring testing and treatment together in a much more rapid fashion,” he said. “As long as we allow the pandemic to continue and to have inequitable access to tools, vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics, new variants are likely to rise, more people are likely to die than are needed to, and the health systems overall are more likely to be undermined.”