The government might miss its target of vaccinating 40-million people by the end of the year because there may not be enough shots available, health minister Zweli Mkhize warned on Wednesday.
Addressing parliament, the minister said SA had secured
43-million doses of Covid-19 vaccines from Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Pfizer and the international vaccine financing facility Covax, but had no control over potential manufacturing delays.
Without wide-scale vaccinations, SA faces an increased risk of new waves of infections and illness, which then lead to lockdowns, further depressing an economy that in 2020 slumped to its biggest annual GDP drop since records began, and lost more than 1-million jobs.
"We will do everything in our power to reach as many people as possible," Mkhize said. "The fact that there may be delays in the supply of vaccines may impact on the numbers successfully vaccinated by the end of the year. We will be reviewing as we go to see if that target needs to be altered or not."
SA has not been the only country to face a supply crunch as pharmaceutical companies struggle to meet demand for jabs. Earlier this year, the EU clashed with AstraZeneca over its plans to cut deliveries due to production shortfalls. The supply constraints forced Spain to partly suspend its immunisation programme in late January, and more recently saw Italy block exports of AstraZeneca’s shots to Australia.
SA has the worst recorded Covid caseload in Africa, with the official tally at 1.52-million infections and close to 51,000 deaths, but has so far vaccinated only 118,000 health-care workers. The government aims to inoculate 40-million adults by the end of the year, in three phases, starting with 1.25-million health-care workers. But it still does not have a detailed delivery schedule for the vast majority of the supplies required to do so, the minister said.
The government began dispensing J&J shots on February 18 in an implementation study that aims to reach half a million health-care workers. The study was devised as an interim measure until commercial supplies are available, and is limited to research sites, with stock arriving in consignments of 80,000 doses every fortnight.
A total of 600,000 doses of Pfizer’s double-shot vaccine are due to land by the end of March, about 100,000 of which will be sourced from Covax, Mkhize said.
But the health department currently only has a quarterly breakdown of the further 11-million doses committed by J&J and the 20-million doses secured from Pfizer, and no delivery schedule for the rest of the stock expected from Covax, said the minister. A deal was signed with J&J last month, but a final agreement has yet to be reached with Pfizer.
"When we have concluded all the agreements and are in a position to do a month-by-month breakdown we will announce that," he said.
SA expects to receive 8-million doses of Covid-19 vaccines between April and June, with 5-million coming from Pfizer and 3-million from J&J, he said.
A further 11.6-million are due between July and September, with 7.6-million promised by Pfizer and 4-million by J&J. And 11-million doses are scheduled for the last quarter of the year, of which 7-million will come from Pfizer and 4-million from J&J.
The number of shots earmarked for SA by J&J and Pfizer will cover slightly more than half the target population.
Covax allocated 117,000 doses of Pfizer’s shot and 2.4-million doses of AstraZeneca’s two-shot vaccine in its first round of allocations. However SA has decided not to use AstraZeneca’s vaccine because a small clinical trial found it offered little protection against the coronavirus strain dominating transmission in SA. It is not clear what alternatives might be available from Covax.
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