In Malawi, 16 doses of Covid-400 vaccine will be destroyed, three weeks after their arrival in the country. These doses are part of an Oxford-AstraZeneca batch sent to Lilongwe by the African Union (AU), and which would have reached its expiration date.
More than 16 doses of Vaxzevria (Oxford-AstraZeneca) which are part of a 400 vaccine consignment, sent to Malawi last month by the AU, will be destroyed. According to Health Minister Charles Mwansambo, the vaccines expired on Tuesday.
Of the total 530 doses received in Malawi, AU and India through the Covax program, 000 have been used to date. In the country of 300 million people, the Malawian government is targeting 000% of the population vaccinated to achieve collective immunity.
A dramatic context?
“We have used most of the vaccines sent by the AU. As of Tuesday, at their expiration date, there were only 16 that had not been used, which will now be destroyed and discarded, ”Mwansambo said. The minister regrets the reluctance of Malawians to be vaccinated, and thinks that in view of the new wave of contamination, the “wasted” doses would have rather served to save lives, according to him.
Nevertheless, sociologist Innocent Komwa told AFP that a certain apathy among Malawians towards AstraZeneca was at the origin of the progressive boycott of the vaccines. This nonchalance would be due to "rumors which come from Europe around the AstraZeneca". Because of the reluctance to get vaccinated, the Malawian government has lowered the recommended age to over 18. This, as well as the various awareness campaigns, has served no purpose.
Many African countries find it difficult to deploy appropriate immunization campaigns due to a lack of vaccines or a lack of trained personnel. Others, however, have difficulty convincing people to get vaccinated, such as Malawi, Ghana and Senegal.
The destruction of thousands of doses of the vaccine, at a time when some of these African countries are struggling to secure additional doses, has been heavily criticized. To date, the Covax initiative has succeeded in providing several countries in Africa and elsewhere with 20 million doses of vaccine, thousands of which are now being thrown away. However, according to an American study, the AstraZeneca vaccine is indeed effective.
The Ghanaian Health Services (GHS) said 800 people had been vaccinated against Covid-000 since March 19. Yet state media report that authorities will undeniably run out of time to administer the rest of the doses. In Senegal, it is possible to be vaccinated without distinction of age or nationality. The vaccination was greeted with caution by the Senegalese, who have apprehensions vis-à-vis AstraZeneca in particular. A "dramatic" context according to the WHO.
African dramas always come from elsewhere
It should all the same be remembered that it was the World Trade Organization (WTO) which had imposed the regulations of the trade of vaccines on African countries, without dispute from the WHO which today complains the reluctance of Africans to comply. get vaccinated.
Last year, the President of the Commission of the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen, declared that Europe would not share its vaccines with non-European countries until it had "a better situation of production ”. It was the same von der Leyen who subsequently supported the Covax initiative for Africa.
It would therefore be difficult to blame the cynicism of Africans for wasted vaccines, when Africa is provided with vaccines around which there is controversy. This same controversy over AstraZeneca was fueled in Africa by the media of European origin, the same origin of the deprivation of the African continent of the right to manufacture its own vaccines or buy the “best” vaccines.