If developed countries move massively ahead with the third dose of the covid vaccine, it will be "even more difficult" for Africa to meet immunization targets, the head of the African Union's public health body stressed today.
"If [developed] countries start going ahead with the third dose, it will make it even more difficult to achieve the goal of an immunization rate of 60 to 70%" of the African continent's population, said John Nkengasong, director of the African Union Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) at the body's weekly online conference from Addis Ababa.
In this context, the epidemiologist who heads the Africa CDC also said: "We have not yet seen enough science to justify a policy of advising a third dose or booster doses of vaccines.
"First of all, we don't know at what point the antibody level drops until it stops offering protection to the progression of the disease. Let's remember that none of the vaccines protect us from infection, what they do is decrease the hostility of the virus," Nkengasong explained.
"We do not yet have enough information to conduct appropriate policy advice regarding the administration of a third dose or the reinforcement of administered doses," said the Africa CDC director.
Nkengasong also reacted to yesterday's Covax global access to covid-19 vaccines for low- and lower-middle-income countries that it expects to have only 1.425 billion doses available by 2021, which is considerably less than the 2 billion doses originally set by the system, and which Covax now expects to reach only by the end of the first quarter of 2022.
African countries have recognized that they "have to depend on themselves" for the purchase of the vaccines they need, including their own capacity to produce them, Nkengasong stressed.
The continent initially set a goal of immunizing between 60 and 70% of the population, so it estimated to administer 1.6 billion doses of vaccine.
The African Union Vaccine Procurement Mechanism (AVAT) plans to distribute 400 million of Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine across the continent, which is equivalent to 800 million of the initially estimated doses, or about 50% of that initial target.
"This means that the AVAT mechanism does not allow the continent to reach the full target set, so it still needs to resort to mechanisms such as Covax and bilateral agreements with various donor countries," Nkengasong explained.
"If countries start moving forward with the third dose, it will make it even more difficult to reach the target immunization rate of 60%," the Africa CDC director said then.
Urged to leave a message for the United Nations General Assembly and the G20 meeting, which take place this month and next, Nkengasong declined to "further politicize" the issue of equitable vaccine distribution.
"Everyone recognizes that the African Union and the Africa CDC have been fighting for moralizing the equitable distribution of vaccines. On January 21 I was very clear when I said that we were heading for a moral catastrophe. People thought I was too aggressive, but today we are where we are, only 3% of the continent's population is fully vaccinated," he said.
"So our message for these two important events is that we cannot continue to politicize this situation and make statements that we don't honor, making promises that don't come true," he added.
The Africa CDC director also took stock of the spread of the pandemic on the continent, which has a cumulative total of 7.9 million cases of infection since its onset in March 2020, a figure that corresponds to 3.6% of cases of infection worldwide.
A small set of countries accounts for 64% of the continent-wide infection cases: South Africa (36%), Morocco (11%), Tunisia (9%), Libya and Ethiopia (both 4%).
A total of 42 countries (76% of the 55 African Union member states) are experiencing a third wave of infections, 31 of which are experiencing a "severe" third wave, where the peak number of deaths significantly exceeds the previous wave of infections.
Meanwhile, six countries are now entering a fourth wave, namely, Algeria, Benin, Kenya, Mauritius, Somalia, and Tunisia.
In terms of the variants, 43 countries report the presence of the alpha variant, 37 report the presence of the beta variant, and 36 countries report the presence of the delta variant.
To date, the continent has received 145.4 million doses of vaccine, of which 111 million (77% of the doses received) have been given. In terms of the vaccinated population, 3.1% of the continent's population has received two doses of the vaccine or has completed vaccination. Some countries stand out in this campaign, namely Morocco, which has already vaccinated 44% of its population with two doses; South Africa (15.9%) or Egypt (3.6%).
Lusa Agency