Discovery and Mediclinic, two of the country’s key private sector operators, have put the brakes on plans to expand their coronavirus vaccination sites, as concern grows over looming supply constraints.
SA’s vaccination campaign launched on May 17, after delays and unexpected setbacks that included a last-minute hold on the release of Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) single-shot jab, which was intended to be the backbone of the programme. Sites are dispensing only Pfizer’s double-shot vaccine.
Health and life insurer Discovery and SA’s biggest private hospital group, Mediclinic, confirmed on Thursday that they had scaled back their plans to expand their vaccine sites due to uncertainty about supplies.
Only 1.3-million Pfizer doses have so far been delivered to SA. A shipment of more than 630,000 is expected on Sunday but it will take several days for the vaccines to be cleared by the national control laboratory and dispatched to sites.
“We have had no problems with stock deliveries to our site to date, but it does look like there is going to be a stock shortage next week,” said Ryan Noach, CEO of Discovery Health, the medical scheme administrator owned by Discovery.
It is currently operating a single mass-vaccination site in Sandton, and was ready to open more, but will not do so
until there is greater security of supply, he said.
“It unfortunately looks like we may have to close for a day or two next week if we don’t have stock. I have 100 staff on the floor but I can’t do anything without vaccines,” he said.
Mediclinic Southern Africa chief clinical officer Gerrit de Villiers said there had been delays in deliveries to the 10 sites it had planned to open this week. Deliveries were expected on Monday but received at some sites only on Thursday, with the balance anticipated next week.
“We are planning 43 sites, but only opening 10 now. One reason for the delay ... is vaccine supply,” he said.
Business for SA chair Martin Kingston said vaccines were being allocated to the private sector by the national health department, in consultation with the private sector, to ensure supplies were fairly distributed.
“We are aware that some private sector sites experienced problems in securing sufficient stock to meet demand this week. The country is currently operating in a vaccine-constrained environment. We anticipate that vaccine supply will improve in the coming months, which will then increase vaccination capacity across public and private sectors,” he said.
Despite recording more coronavirus cases and deaths from Covid-19 than any other African country, SA has lagged its peers on the vaccination front. As of Wednesday evening, the tally of cases stood at more than 1.64-million and the death toll at more than 56,000.
Almost 480,000 healthcare workers had been vaccinated under the Sisonke study and 282,135 people had received their first Pfizer shot.
In February, the planned rollout of AstraZeneca’s vaccine was halted because a small study showed it offered scant protection against mild to moderate infection with a new coronavirus variant, B.1.351, which had by then come to dominate transmission in SA.
It then paused use of J&J’s shot in the Sisonke study, which provided the vaccine to healthcare workers, over safety concerns about an extremely rare blood clotting disorder. In the latest setback, the US Food and Drug Administration has flagged safety concerns at one of J&J’s contractors, Baltimore-based Emergent Biosolutions, which supplies key vaccine ingredients to other contractors in J&J’s supply chain. As a result, millions of vaccine doses are on hold at J&J contractors around the world, including at Aspen Pharmacare’s Gqeberha plant.
SA has signed bilateral agreements with J&J for 31-million doses of its shot and with Pfizer for 30-million doses. Another 1.392-million Pfizer doses are expected by the end of June from the international vaccine financing vehicle, Covax, but a delivery date for this allocation has yet to be announced.
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