Photographer: Rodger Bosch / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Rodger Bosch / AFP / Getty Images
We keep up with the latest news about coronavirus outbreaks and the global response. Sign up here for our daily newsletter on what you need to know.
Some of South Africa’s most senior medical leaders and academics have called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to fire government officials over delays in obtaining Covid-19 vaccines, saying their actions would cause thousands of deaths and countless economic damages. .
The claim was made in an opinion piece managed by News24, the country’s largest internet news website, and signed by nine people, including Glenda Gray, the president of the South African Medical Research Council, and officials from other health organizations, hospitals and universities.
Although at least 29 countries ranging from Mexico to Germany have begun vaccinating their populations against the virus, South Africa has yet to conclude agreements for direct supply to pharmaceutical companies. The country has ordered vaccines from the Covax facility, an initiative designed to ensure fair access to vaccines, but it will only cover 10% of the population of about 60 million and will arrive in the second quarter of the year. Even then, a charity laid down the deposit after the government missed a deadline it announced itself.
The failure to procure vaccines is an “unforgivable failure, which will be measured in lives lost thousands, tens of thousands of diseases, a broken health care system and serious and ongoing economic damage,” the health leaders and academics said opinion piece. Ramaphosa will ‘have to swing the ax against the members and officials in his government who are responsible for this dangerous fiasco and immediately set the course.’
Click here for South Africa’s progress in obtaining vaccines
Tyrone Seale, acting spokesperson for Ramaphosa, said he could comment after the presidency investigated the article. The Ministry of Health did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
South Africa, with more than 1.09 million confirmed Covid-19 infections and 29,175 deaths, is the worst-hit country on the African continent. Its economy probably shrank the most in nine decades last year, according to negative decades.
The criticism contributes to the attacks on the vaccine strategy by opposition parties as well as the largest unions in the country, which are affiliated with the ruling party.
With the world’s largest HIV epidemic and hundreds of thousands of tuberculosis sufferers, South Africa has a sophisticated health system with leading scientists. At least three Covid-19 vaccine trials are underway in the country and Johnson & Johnson has agreed to release 300 million of its Covid-19 vaccines at a Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd. ‘s factory in the country when the shot is approved.
Click here for progress with global vaccinations
“The public acknowledgment by officials that they do not consider it prudent to start bilateral negotiations with vaccine providers because they cannot ‘take the risk’ of ordering vaccines if they do not work is shockingly insulting,” the health leaders said. said.
They also criticized the so-called ministerial advisory committee, a group of scientists appointed by Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, for reflecting the government’s arguments.
Gray and Francois Venter, an academic who signed the opinion piece, were removed from the committee by Mkhize last year. Both have previously been critical of the government’s approach to the virus.
(Update infections, deaths in sixth paragraph)