SA faces a potential shortage of coronavirus vaccines that could compromise its ability to protect its most vulnerable citizens from the next wave of infections, widely expected to strike as winter closes in.
While the government has consistently said it has secured enough Covid-19 shots to inoculate two-thirds of the population, or 40-million people in the next 12 months, it has yet to provide a clear line of sight on the date of arrival of these vaccines in SA. On Monday, Business For SA (B4SA) warned that the country faces a supply problem between April and June.
“We know that right now SA doesn’t have a dearth of vaccines. We will have enough. We have a timing issue in [the second quarter]. That is when you start edging towards the winter months. People tend to huddle more ... in confined areas, and the risk goes up,” B4SA’s Stavros Nicolaou said in a Wits Business School virtual event.
The vaccine crunch in the second quarter is the “singular focus” of the public and private sectors, which are trying to accelerate the vaccine supplies in the pipeline, said Nicolaou, who is also head of strategic trade at Aspen Pharmacare.
The only Covid-19 vaccines destined for SA for which details are in the public domain are the 500,000 Johnson & Johnson (J&J) doses that have been earmarked for an implementation study restricted to health-care workers. A total of 160,000 of those doses have landed in SA.
While the government has signed a deal with J&J for
11-million doses, no details have yet been released of the cost or timing. Nor is there any clarity on the deal with Pfizer, which according to health minister Zweli Mkhize is close to finalisation. He told parliament last week that the previously indicated figure of 20-million Pfizer doses might change.
There is little publicly available information on the
12-million doses secured from the international vaccine financing vehicle Covax or on those secured from the AU.
Business Day understands J&J has committed 2.8-million doses of its single-shot vaccine by the end of the second quarter, while Pfizer has committed about half a million doses of its double-shot vaccine in the first, and another 4.9-million vaccine doses in the second. Combined with the J&J implementation study, this would be sufficient for 6-million people by the end of June, potentially leaving many of SA’s most vulnerable people — the elderly and those with underlying health conditions — unprotected.
The government’s current vaccination strategy targets
1.25-million health-care workers in phase 1, and 16-million people in phase 2, which covers people over the age of 60, essential workers, people living in congregate settings, and people with comorbidities.
If SA failed to accelerate the arrival of vaccines, the government would need to revise its strategy, and prioritise the people most likely to be hospitalised or die from Covid-19, Nicolaou said. Wits vaccinologist Shabir Madhi agreed, saying the government should “recalibrate” its vaccination strategy and focus on vaccinating high-risk groups as quickly as possible.
No vaccines have yet been approved for general use by the SA Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra), but the department of health could get permission to import vaccines already authorised by other stringent regulators, such as the European Medicines Authority.
Senior manager for pharmaceutical evaluation Silverani Padayachee said on Monday Sahpra expects to complete its rolling review of J&J’s application for full market authorisation between mid- and end-April. The emergency-use authorisation granted by the US Food and Drug Administration for J&J’s shot at the weekend will not accelerate this process, she said.
Pfizer has also submitted an application for full market authorisation, and this is likely to be finalised in April, she said.
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