Vaccine deliveries to poorer countries will fall short of 2-billion target to deliver jabs
08 September 2021 - 19:07The international vaccine-sharing facility Covax expects to receive just 1.425-billion doses of Covid-19 jabs from donors this year, a far cry from its July estimate of 2-billion, highlighting the risk facing countries that depend on it for their vaccines.
SA signed deals for 31-million doses of J&J’s single shot vaccine and 20-million doses of the double-shot Pfizer vaccine through its bilateral agreements. Covax has so far allocated 2.57-million Pfizer doses and 2.4-million doses of Sinovac’s vaccine to SA, according to documents on its website. Gavi CEO Seth Berkley said there were many reasons for the lower forecast for 2021, including export restrictions imposed by the Serum Institute of India, early supplies being snapped up by rich countries, delays in the regulatory approval of vaccines developed by US firm Novavax and China’s Clover Biopharmaceuticals, and manufacturing problems at J&J and AstraZeneca facilities.
“We are very concerned that some countries are talking about boosters when there isn’t a lot of evidence that vaccines are failing to protect people from severe disease at this point. Let us first prevent deaths that are entirely preventable with the vaccines we have. It is possible to vaccinate all healthcare workers by the end of September and 40% of the population by the end of the year,” she said.
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