Health experts worry that public scepticism about taking the relatively small number of doses African countries have battled to procure could prolong the pandemic on the continent.
Experts say a combination of warnings about possible rare blood clots, the rubbishing of vaccines by some leaders and mixed messages over expiry dates have all contributed to the slow rollout across the continent.
Covid-19 has also not hit Africa’s 1.3 billion people to the extent it has ravaged some countries in Europe, Brazil, the US and India, leaving some on the continent doubting the seriousness of the disease.
The official death toll in Africa stands at 121,000, lower than that of the UK alone. Last week, the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), John Nkengasong, again implored citizens to stay vigilant, calling India’s Covid-19 disaster a wake-up call.
But Maggie Fick reports for Reuters that the message is not necessarily getting through.
Kenya began vaccinating 400,000 frontline health staff and other essential workers in early March after receiving more than a million AstraZeneca doses from the global vaccine sharing scheme Covax. By 25 April, the country had only vaccinated 152,700 health workers, health ministry data shows.
Chibanzi Mwachonda, the head of Kenya’s main doctors’ union, said the government had offered the doses more widely because of the slow uptake of the vaccines, which the United Nations says will expire on 28 June.
Health workers were already angry and suspicious because the government had failed to provide enough protective equipment, Mwachonda said. Now, many felt the government had not adequately addressed concerns about possible side effects, he said.
“I’m not an anti-vaxxer … I have my children vaccinated up to date with everything out there, but this one? I’m not comfortable,” said a doctor in Kenya, who declined to be named. “If there is no data on long-term effects then we are all being guinea pigs. What happens in 10 years after this vaccine?”
