South Africa was swift to impose a strict lockdown and rigorous testing at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but its vaccination programme can best be described as stuttering – despite it having the worst mortality figures on the African continent.
In January, the country appeared to be finally out of the blocks – and faster than other African countries when it came to getting hold of the vaccines – but the rollout has since faltered.
With only 0.5% of the population vaccinated, South Africa lags behind the likes of Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Botswana.
The government has had to push back its target of injecting 40 million South Africans, about two-thirds of the population, by December to next March.
And with winter fast approaching there are concerns about a third wave of coronavirus infections – particularly as not all frontline health workers have yet had a jab.
Critics say that had officials planned better, millions of South Africans – instead of just 300,000 – would be vaccinated by now.
Last year, the government talked tough about how seriously it was taking the virus and how closely it was following the science. Yet when it came time to securing vaccines, the country seemed to rely on getting them through the global Covax scheme.
The idea behind the initiative was to pool resources to support the development of vaccines with a view to ensure that all countries received a fair supply of effective vaccines.
But wealthier nations have seemingly stymied its effectiveness by doing deals with manufacturers guaranteeing themselves a supply meaning Covax has struggled to obtain enough doses.
Covax aside, South Africa’s vaccine programme had other problems.
The country eventually secured a deal in January to buy the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from the Serum Institute of India, paying more than double the amount charged to the European Union.
Then in February a study in South Africa involving some 2,000 people found that the vaccine offered “minimal protection” against mild and moderate cases of the coronavirus variant that is most common in the country.
As a result, the vaccine programme was put on hold, and South Africa sold its one million doses to the African Union.
Prof Shabir Madhi, who led the AstraZeneca trials in South Africa, said the sale was a mistake, as the vaccines already acquired should have been used for high-risk people.
“The AstraZeneca will still protect against severe disease, even if it didn’t protect against mild and moderate case,” local media quoted him as saying.
“Selling our AstraZeneca vaccines was a miscalculation by our government; one that has set us back by several months in terms of our vaccination rollout.”
In February the country did become the first in the world to administer the single-dose Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine after studies showed it had a higher protection rate against the South African variant than other jabs.
