Leading experts in South Africa\u2019s vaccine procurement strategy say while securing a COVID-19 vaccine is top of the country\u2019s agenda, it is not a magic bullet that will end the pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a general misunderstanding and we need to clarify that once the vaccines arrive on our doorstep, that is not the end of the epidemic.<\/p>\n
“The first branches will go to protect healthcare workers and will have no effect on the population as such.<\/p>\n
“Then there will be immunisation of the population and that is going to take a long time,\u201d said Professor Barry Schoub, who is the Ministerial Advisory Committee chairperson on vaccine development.<\/p>\n
Schoub, together with the Health Department Deputy Director General, Dr Anban Pillay, and South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) extramural unit researcher, Safura Abdool Karim, engaged in a panel discussion broadcast by the SABC on the COVID-19 vaccine outlook in 2021.<\/p>\n
The panel discussion on vaccine procurement comes as South Africa recorded its highest daily infections, with 17 710 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the country\u2019s cumulative total to 1 039 161.<\/p>\n
South Africa is set to receive initial vaccines from the COVAX facility to cover 10% of its population in the early part of 2021.<\/p>\n
Priority of the vaccine roll out will begin with healthcare workers, the elderly and those with comorbidities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe COVAX facility has indicated that we should expect delivery of the vaccine in quarter two [of 2021].<\/p>\n
“They are trying very hard to get us delivery before that. If they succeed with the manufacturers, then we may get delivery earlier but we do not have a specific date as yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cCOVAX indicated to us that in early January, they will have a firm date on when exactly that delivery will come through and we will certainly communicate that as soon as we hear what that date is,\u201d said Pillay.<\/p>\n
Dispelling some misconceptions that government failed to procure the vaccine on time, Karim explained the historic inequity within the procurement of medicine. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing I would want to dispute is the idea that our situation is as a result of poor planning. The reason South Africa is not able to access the vaccine is in the way the US and UK have is that we are not a wealthy country and that is a historic inequity.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoorer countries are always left behind when it comes to health interventions and that is not a result of our government not wanting a vaccine. That is a result of a system that prioritises profits over people\u2019s lives,\u201d said Karim.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Pillay said South Africa wants to acquire a vaccine with the best efficacy, which will be easily stored for mass roll out. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne needs to bear in mind that the Pfizer vaccine needs to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius. Many countries did not opt to go with the Pfizer vaccine as a mass vaccination programme because it is very difficult to do that, particularly in a country like South Africa and many other developing nations that do not have storage capacity for -70 degrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have commercially only two large storage facilities that will keep a -70 degrees vaccine. So we would not be able to keep the large quantities that are required to vaccinate many people,\u201d he said. – SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leading experts in South Africa\u2019s vaccine procurement strategy say while securing a COVID-19 vaccine is top of the country\u2019s agenda, it is not a magic bullet that will end the pandemic. \u201cThere is a general misunderstanding and we need to clarify that once the vaccines arrive on our doorstep, that is not the end of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-176294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}