SA’s acute shortage of coronavirus vaccines is forcing the Western Cape health department to put the brakes on its plans to expand its immunisation programme.
It appears to be the first province to warn that it has hit a plateau in its vaccination rate, triggered by the worldwide delay in the supply of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) shots, which were intended to be the workhorse of SA’s mass inoculation drive.
“We have the sites, we have the vaccinators, we have the distribution network. But we cannot do more unless we have more supplies coming in. The big constraint is due to the non-release of the J&J doses,” Western Cape head of health Keith Cloete said on Thursday.
The national government’s mass vaccination programme was dealt an unexpected blow in May after the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) put a hold on the release of millions of doses of J&J’s vaccine due to problems it identified at a US Emergent BioSolutions factory that makes key ingredients for the shots. The hold on the J&J vaccines means the government has only a limited supply of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines on hand.
The government had expected the FDA to finalise its position on J&J’s vaccine by Friday, but that decision may be slightly delayed because the authority rescheduled its planned inspection of Emergent from Wednesday to Friday, according to Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention director John Nkengasong. A decision from the FDA was imminent, but might only come early next week, he told reporters in a virtual briefing.
As of June 1, 1.3-million doses of Pfizer’s double-shot vaccine had been distributed to the provinces, and another 636,000 doses was awaiting clearance by the national control laboratory in Bloemfontein, according to a presentation by health director-general Sandile Buthelezi to the Black Business Council on Wednesday. Two more weekly deliveries of 636,000 Pfizer shots are expected in late June, rising to a shipment of 1.27-million doses by June 21. SA is currently offering vaccines to health-care workers and people over the age of 60.
The Western Cape has steadily increased the number of vaccines it administers at public sector sites since the national vaccination programme began on May 17, but has now reached the point where it cannot expand further without a significant increase in supplies, said Cloete. The province expected to administer 60,000 Pfizer doses this week, but would increase to only 70,000 next week, far short of its original target of 120,000, he said.
The province has so far received 124,020 Pfizer doses, and by Friday expected to have administered at least 80% of these supplies at public sector sites. The remainder, combined with the next tranche of 72,540 Pfizer vaccines slated for delivery on Friday, would not be sufficient to reach the 120,000 target, he said.
Cloete said he did not know how many doses had been provided to private sector sites in the province, as their stocks were allocated by the national health department.
The Western Cape health department currently operates 204 vaccination sites, and plans to open mass vaccination sites in Cape Town once vaccine supplies ramp up, he said. These mega-sites will be in the city centre, the Cape Flats, and the northern suburbs.
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