South Africa’s approach to its Covid-19 vaccine programme has been characterised by a large number of missteps. In aggregate it has left th...
South Africa’s approach to its Covid-19 vaccine programme has been characterised by a large number of missteps. In aggregate it has left the country behind many others on the continent, and essentially left millions unvaccinated as a savage third wave descends on the country.
This has happened despite an established vaccine procurement and distribution network, access to the first large batch of vaccines on the continent and a large number of pandemic and vaccine experts.
As the country battles a severe third wave crisis, at great cost to health, economy and society, the rollout of a vaccine programme remains the only sustainable means to protect the population against Covid-19 severe disease and death and return to some level of acceptable economic activity.
Strategically, therefore, policy needs to be hyper-focused on the delivery of a responsive vaccine programme to protect especially high-risk groups against severe disease and death.
In this article, we outline the history of the vaccine strategy and its pitfalls. We also suggest a way forward.
Some context
As the pandemic first unfolded South Africa had, from a vaccine perspective, a number of things going for it. It has a large childhood vaccine programme although with weaknesses in overall coverage. It also has a private sector able to distribute adult vaccines, and experience of rolling...
