AstraZeneca celebrates one year of COVAX vaccine deliveries to Africa
When on Dec. 31, 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) was informed of cases of a pneumonia-like disease of unknown cause in Wuhan City, China, the world was thrown into unprecedented uncertainties.
A novel coronavirus was identified as the cause by Chinese authorities on Jan.7, 2020, and it was temporarily named 2019-nCoV.
On, Feb. 11, 2020, the official names COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 were issued by the WHO and that was the genesis of the biggest pandemic, so far, of the 21st century.
COVID-19 is a communicable respiratory disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus.
While researchers and scientists are still unravelling the disease, some think that the virus started in animals and, at a point, humans acquired it and transmitted to others.
The disease spreads through infected droplets from sneezing or coughing and can also be transmitted when humans have contact with hands or surfaces that contain the virus and then touch their eyes, noses or mouths with the contaminated hands.
The disease caused many deaths across the world, creating panic and confusion as there was no known cure or treatment strategy for the novel disease.
While it ravaged other continents, it didn't hit Africa until February 2020. On Feb. 14, 2020, the Minister of Health and Population of Egypt, Dr Hala Zayed, confirmed the first case of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Egypt – a 33-year-old male of foreign of foreign origin. That was the index case in Africa.
The second African country to record COVID-19 was Algeria, by an Italian adult, who arrived in the country on Feb. 17, 2020, testing positive for coronavirus.
The disease subsequently spread to other countries on the continent while WHO swung into action with governments across Africa to increase their capacities in critical response areas such as coordination, surveillance, testing, isolation, case management, contact tracing, infection prevention and control, risk communication and community engagement, and laboratory capacity.
Strategies such as lockdowns, isolation, travel advisories and mandatory preventive measures were introduced to curb spread pending when a vaccine, the only seeming hope, would be developed.
There was urgency to develop COVID-19 vaccine as the disease was ravaging lives across the continent.
According to UNAIDS, in 2020, COVID-19 infected almost 100 million people on the planet and killed two million.
The need for vaccine also became urgent because lives had to get back to normal as protocols – social distancing, mask wearing, hand washing and sanitising and others did not eliminate infection.
However, the demand for effective vaccines against COVID-19 became more urgent to protect populations and restart economies.
Like a light in a tunnel, vaccines were discovered, though the efficacy, due to the speed of development, was interrogated.
On April 24, 2020, WHO hosted the launch of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, a new global collaboration to accelerate development, production and equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.
Within the Accelerator, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Gavi – an international organisation created in 2000 to improve access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the world's poorest countries – and WHO together with multinational and developing country vaccine manufacturers began working to develop the COVAX Facility.
The Facility provides governments with the opportunity to benefit from a large portfolio of COVID-19 candidate vaccines, using a range of technology platforms produced by more manufacturers across the world, with a bigger market to provide security of demand – often with greater scope than governments or regional groups can support on their own.
The Facility benefits from a growing number of COVID-19 vaccine candidates and manufacturing capacity.
On Feb. 24, 2021, as part of the largest global vaccination drive in history, through the COVAX initiative, the first doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine began to arrive in countries across the world.
About 600,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine were received by health authorities in Ghana.
Within days, Ivory Coast received 504,000 doses. Since then, more than 310 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine have been delivered through COVAX to 130 countries.
On March 2, 2021, Nigeria received nearly four million doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine shipped via the COVAX Facility.
COVAX shipped 3.94 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), from Mumbai to Abuja.
The arrival was historic. It was a significant step toward the goal to ensure equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines globally.
An estimated 70 million doses have reached sub-Saharan Africa, making the AstraZeneca vaccine one of the most used COVID-19 vaccines in Africa till date.
AstraZeneca (LSE/STO/Nasdaq: AZN) is a global, science-led biopharmaceutical company that focuses on discovery, development and commercialisation of prescription medicines in oncology, rare diseases and biopharmaceuticals, including cardiovascular, renal, metabolism, and respiratory immunology.
Based in Cambridge, UK, AstraZeneca operates in over 100 countries and its innovative medicines are used by millions of patients worldwide.
To mark the one year success, Barbara Nel, Country President for Africa, AstraZeneca, says: "As part of our commitment to putting broad and equitable access at the heart of our pandemic response, AstraZeneca was proud to be the first global pharmaceutical company to join COVAX in 2020.
"Our strong partnerships with the Serum Institute of India (SII), GAVI – the Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organisation – are vital to deliver on our commitment to supplying Africa with the COVID-19 vaccine at no profit.
" We commend the work being done by governments across the continent to increase immunisation coverage and protect their citizens from severe disease."
Aurélia Nguyen, Managing Director of the Office of the COVAX Facility at Gavi, says: "Despite the severe supply setbacks experienced for COVAX during most of 2021, a `new paradigm' is happening today.
"I'm happy to say that COVAX is operating under a new paradigm with current supplies now able to meet demand.
"We have the ability to be responsive to countries' individual vaccination strategies.
" And this means ensuring that countries have stocks in countries so they can administer literally as fast as they are able to. It also means operating longer term feasibility (assessments) on supply."
According to global estimates, the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has helped prevent 50 million COVID-19 cases and five million hospitalisations, helping to save more than one million lives.
AstraZeneca and its partners have released for supply more than 2.6 billion vaccine doses to more than 180 countries across every continent; approximately two-thirds of these doses have gone to low- and lower-middle-income countries.
However, only 13 per cent of Africans are fully vaccinated.
Eighteen countries have vaccinated less than 10 per cent of their population and three have vaccinated less than one per cent.
Twenty-nine countries have used less than 50 per cent of their vaccine stock.
High-risk populations also remain critically underserved by vaccination programmes.
In 27 countries reporting data on health worker vaccination, 33 per cent of their health work force is fully vaccinated, and in 24 African countries reporting data on vaccination of older people, only 21 per cent of adults over 50 years are fully vaccinated.
Eleven per cent of people with comorbidities are fully vaccinated in 20 countries reporting that data.
Consequently, Dr John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa CDC, says strong coordination among vaccine donors, AVAT, COVAX and African countries remains crucial if the continent will achieve the target of vaccinating 70 per cent of its population by mid-2022.
