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Ruth Butaumocho-African Agenda
The beginning of 2021 opened windows of hope to millions of people under siege from the pandemic, after several countries announced that a coterie of vaccines were ready for use after successful trials.
With the horror of millions succumbing to Covid-19 still fresh in the minds of many, heads of states across the world quickly arranged to buy vaccines and immediately embark on massive vaccination programmes for their people.
Despite teething problems initially experienced across the world, with finances and availability of vaccines being some of them, a lot of countries, Zimbabwe included, hit the ground running to avert further deaths.
Rich countries that included Canada, Australia, the US, and members of the EU, bought enough doses of Covid-19 vaccines to vaccinate their populations four times over before many countries, probably in an attempt insulate their populations against Covid-19 deaths and infections.
African countries, on the other hand, trudged along in earnest, albeit with little resources to fund such a robust but expensive programme, leaving them with less to bankroll other important projects.
Analysing attempts, trends and progress that were being made by a number of African countries, the World Health Organisation projected that Africa would have vaccinated 20 percent of its population by September 2021.
Such a projection was premised on the understanding that the vaccine-sharing scheme, Covax, donations from friendly countries like China and individual country efforts would have buoyed the vaccination programmes across Africa by then.
For a number of African countries, the biggest boost came from Covax, which according to WHO, sent nearly 12 million doses in July alone.
However, 17 months after it officially started, the pandemic is now a tale of two worlds.
Rich countries are edging closer to the finishing line, in terms of vaccination of their people, while poor countries – the majority who are in Africa are trudging along — a pale distance behind.
As of June 2021, Africa had administered 59 percent of its vaccine supply, which translates to only 1,86 percent and 0,51 percent of the population receiving the first and second doses of the Covid-19 vaccine respectively.
Seychelles, which has a small population is the African country currently has the highest coronavirus vaccination rate, followed by Mauritius, Morocco, Cabo Verde, Tunisia, Comoros and Zimbabwe, according to Statista, a global business data platform. More than 1,5 million in Zimbabwe are now fully vaccinated, with hopes to inoculate thousands more in the next few weeks, after the country recently received one million more vaccines for its inoculation programme.
The continent aims to vaccinate at least 20 percent of the population by providing up to 600 million doses by the end of 2021.
However, that figure may be difficult to attain within the stipulated time, and WHO is already raising red flags, warning that 47 of Africa’s 54 countries are likely to miss the September target of vaccinating 10 percent of their populations unless they receive 225 million more doses.
The pronouncement from the global health body is a sad and unfortunate development whose long term implications would be felt beyond Africa, and will certainly derail efforts made elsewhere to curb the global pandemic.
Riding under the mantra, “an injury to one is an injury to all,” lagging behind of Africa’s vaccination programme should worry other continents and push them to act to ensure that everyone is insulated against the effects of Covid-19.
The war against Covid-19 will be won once nearly everyone has been vaccinated against the virus, so that borders can be reopened, business can resume and people are able to move freely without any fears of a spike in new infections.
There is no logic for the rich countries to sprint ahead of everyone and proudly declare themselves free from Covid-19 because of the intertwined economic, social and political relations they share with Africa and other nations that are lagging behind in vaccinations.
Africa is a trading partner with nearly every continent and failure by member countries to attain herd immunity will affect its business relations with other continents, and such consequences will cascade to those that have fully vaccinated their population, but are not able to trade with unvaccinated nations.
In a statement released in May this year on the global impact of Covid-19, UNICEF clearly hammered on the importance of uniting against the virus when it said:
“The impact of a catastrophe like Covid-19 is measured in the tragedy of individual loss and death, as well as the national and global disruption to almost every part of life. No country in the world has been untouched.”
The control of Covid-19 calls for a global approach to ensure even distribution of resources, attention to areas of need, and unfettered commitment to ensure that the pandemic is tamed once and for all.
The pandemic has shown that the world would need to move ahead with unity of purpose and with agility to tame the pandemic, which has heavily decimated even the strongest health institutions across the globe.
To date 4,4 million have succumbed to Covid-19 with the US having the world’s highest reported death toll, of more than 600 000, or nearly one in seven deaths, followed by Brazil.
With a possibility of a fourth wave threatening to further decimate the populations that are already battling to rein in new infections as a result of the Delta variant, vaccination is the only way that will prevent further deaths.
Vaccines have been proven to prevent cases and deaths, so countries must urgently share Covid-19 vaccines to rein in on new infections.
WHO, through its regional director for Africa, recently called on other continents to share the vaccines, saying “It is do or die on dose sharing for Africa.”
When the skies become clearer and human kind is less vulnerable to the scourge of Covid-19, African leaders would need to urgently convene and chart its destiny in protecting its people from future pandemics.
Of immediate concern would be agitating for a waiver of patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines and medicines at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in order to boost supply to developing countries.
Africa is endowed not only with precious materials, but is home to fauna and flora, whose properties are used in the manufacture of various chemicals, medicines and even vaccines that the continent is now struggling to buy.
However, save for a few instances the abundance of flora and fauna in Africa will not help much, unless Africa agitates for the waiver of patent protection to enable it to also manufacture its medicines and vaccines in times like these.
Despite the abundance of natural resources in Africa, patents has for long restricted the continent from accessing impactful technologies and constrict the ability of health systems to provide essential healthcare, especially during this time where Covid-19 has torn the continent apart, rendering it useless.
A global pandemic is not the time to limit the speed and scale of production of vaccines, leaving the manufacturing of medicines, personal protection equipment and monitoring devices in the hands of the few, who naturally will watch everyone suffer while lining their pockets.
If global leaders are earnest in their statements that no country is safe till every country is safe, this is the time to share global resources equitably and remove waiver on patents so that Africa is also allowed to chart its own destiny by manufacturing some of these life-saving medicines and vaccines.
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Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter