At a time when global cooperation and help are most needed, many countries on the African continent are facing “vaccine nationalism” from the West. Several countries have been forced to discard more than 3 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccines because the vaccines expired within months of being received as donations.
The situation is “regrettable” and “heartbreaking,” Africa experts told the Global Times.
Hoarding of Covid-19 vaccines by some Western countries and providing nearly expired vaccines to Africa is immoral, violates basic human rights and delays the end of the pandemic and global socioeconomic recovery, according to African experts quoted as saying in the China Daily.
They made the remarks after Nigeria destroyed more than 1 million expired doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine last week. The vaccine doses were donated by Western countries and had just weeks left on their shelf life. In addition to Nigeria, countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi and Senegal also face similar problems of expired Covid-19 vaccines
The vaccine nationalist mentality in Western countries is the number one cause of vaccine waste in Africa, the experts said. Western countries stockpile excess vaccines and “donate” them to African countries when they are about to expire, for political show. They don’t care about whether Africa lacks vaccine storage conditions and primary care services, and these unusable vaccines drain the expectations and budgets of African countries.
Heartbreaking waste
The WHO Regional Office of Africa confirmed to the Global Times that vaccine discard in African countries is a noted situation. On December 22, 2021, the Nigerian government destroyed more than 1.06 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine at a landfill on the outskirts of the capital city Abuja. According to media reports, these vaccines were part of the more than 2.59 million doses Nigeria received from Europe in October 2021, and had expired in November.
The destruction of these vaccines followed reports that vaccines received from Europe through the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access program (COVAX) arrived in Nigeria with only four to six weeks of viability remaining, making them unusable for the timely inoculation of populations in the African country.
Concerning the heartbreaking news that more than 1 million doses of vaccines would be destroyed in a country with less than a 4 per cent full vaccination rate, the Nigerian Ministry of Health issued a statement saying that many low and middle-income countries have experienced similar situations.
The Ministry called on vaccine donors to start the donation process as soon as possible so that recipient countries are able to receive the vaccine with a longer shelf life to avoid wastage. Nigeria said it is no longer accepting vaccine donations with short, unviable shelf lives.
Nigeria is not the first country to destroy expired vaccines. Senegalese authorities also recently said that 400,000 doses of expired vaccines would be destroyed. Malawi burned 20,000 doses of expired vaccines in May 2021, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) returned 1.3 million doses of vaccines due to expiration.
Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe have asked Pfizer, in the last several months, to pause shipments because of challenges with vaccine uptake, according to the company’s statement.
The situation is regrettable, especially as Africa remains the least vaccinated continent against Covid-19, Adhere Cavince, a Kenyan scholar, pointed out to the Global Times.
As of the end of 2021, only a worrying 7.5 per cent of the continent’s 1.3 billion people are fully vaccinated while a few Western countries are stockpiling far more vaccines than they need and are wasting them. Statistics show the US and its partners have about 240 million doses of vaccines about to expire. And many of these vaccines being used for donations have been criticised as being props in political showmanship.
The act has sparked international concern and discontent. The Covid-19 Vaccine Procurement Facility, led by the African Vaccine Procurement Trust, the African Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the WHO, recently issued a statement calling for improvements in the quality of vaccines donated to Africa.
Data from a World Bank study shows that for every month that vaccines are delayed in arriving in Africa, there is a loss of about $13.8 billion in local GDP.
West’s ‘vaccine nationalism’
Africa’s slow pace of vaccination is mainly caused by “vaccine nationalism” of the producing countries that bought much of the global supply, leaving little for Africa, Cavince, the Kenyan scholar on international relations, told the Global Times.
Donation being the major way through which Africa receives vaccines, most donations are a just second thought political decision by developed countries which have seen vaccines nearing expiry shipped to the continent, he said. His accusations are echoed by many African medical experts and senior officials, who fired at the West’s blatant arrogance over the issue. “We had developed countries that procured these vaccines and hoarded them. At the point they were about to expire, they offered them for donation,” condemned Faisal Shuaib, head of Nigeria’s National Primary Health Care Development Agency.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa also accused the developed countries of being “unjust and immoral” by hoarding vaccines needed in poorer nations. “The greed that they demonstrated is something that is quite disappointing indeed, particularly when they say they are our partners,” he said, according to the South African government.
The West has been ignorant to the fact that many African countries do not have the capacity to rapidly distribute and administer the vaccines, Cavince told the Global Times. Experts familiar with vaccine donation processes noted to the Global Times that considering the time required to administer the vaccines, vaccine donors usually send out the doses several months in advance.
Light at the end of the tunnel
African experts also noted to the Global Times that the only sustainable way to ensure Africa has access to the vaccines it needs is to encourage local production in the continent.
China, picking up the mantle, is already blazing that trail with joint production hubs in Egypt and Morocco. The FOCAC 2021 commitments by China to produce 400 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine in the continent should be emulated by other vaccine-producing countries. The 400 million doses expected to be co-produced by China and African countries is part of China’s 1 billion vaccine donation promise for 2022, which was announced in November 2021, in order to help the continent achieve the AU’s target of vaccinating 60 per cent of the population by 2022.
China had already provided about 180 million doses of vaccines to Africa as of November 30, 2021, covering almost all African countries. Most of the more than 6 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines administered in Zimbabwe are vaccines developed by Chinese companies. “Chinese vaccines are the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
In Namibia, about 140,000 people have been vaccinated using China’s Sinopharm vaccines. Equatorial Guinea received 100,000 doses of vaccines from China in November 2021, becoming the first West African country to receive a large consignment of vaccines. Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue said that when facing difficulties, “only China has taken us into its heart and extended a helping hand.”
Due to China’s mature vaccine technologies, longer shelf lives, and lower requirements for storage and transportation, Chinese-made vaccines are a more preferable choice for many developing countries with relatively weak vaccination infrastructures. This has been reflected in the approval of Chinese vaccines in more than 100 countries. China has once again demonstrated what the responsibilities of great power should be in its vaccine donations to Africa, in stark contrast to the arrogance of Western countries, Zhu Weidong, a senior research fellow with the Institute of West Asian and African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.
More, people in many African countries, especially Muslim-majority ones, still have vaccine skepticism, and they believe in traditional treatments over vaccines. It is partly due to some Western media’s frequent reports over incidences of AstraZeneca vaccination-related deaths, which further added to the skepticism, Zha noted.
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