ESWATINI CAN TAKE ASTRAZENECA – WHO

MBABANE – Could Eswatini be wrong to dump the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine?

Both the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have advised Eswatini and 43 other African countries to take the vaccine.

The countries that have been given a go ahead to continue the roll-out of the vaccine are those that have not reported any new variant of COVID-19.

Efficacy

Last week South Africa announced that the astrazeneca’s efficacy rate declined with the new variant of COVID-19 as opposed to the 75 per cent efficacy with the initial variant of the pandemic. 

Early in the week Eswatini announced the decision to suspend the process of administering the vaccine based on SAs findings.

Health Minister Lizzie Nkosi announced that the country would consider other candidate vaccines such as the Pfizer and the Johnson and Johnson. Africa CDC Director Dr John Nkengasong basis of the advice was that the AstraZeneca vaccine was still safe and would work perfectly well in countries that have not reported new variants.

“For now only 11 African countries have reported new variants and these are Ghana, Senegal, Morocco, Gambia and Nigeria with the 501YV1 variant and Botswana, Ghana, Comoros, Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya and Zambia with 501YV2 variant.”

Situation

Dr Nkengasong was speaking during the weekly press briefing on the coronavirus situation on Thursday.

The health expert boasting decades’ experience in virology said even if a country were to detect a couple of cases of the new variant, they should still continue taking the AstraZeneca vaccine because having a few cases of a new variant did not mean the variant was dominant in that country.

Dr Kevin Makadzange shared similar sentiments.

The WHO Health Promotion Officer for Eswatini said, “A variant is considered dominant if it is detected in about 90 per cent of the tested population.”

Dr Makadzange said they were still advising countries including Eswatini to go for the AstraZeneca vaccine but also do a proper risk assessment. 

He said even the CDC will not discard the over 100 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine which it has.

“We will be distributing it and we are targeting countries that do not have the new variants. 

We are left with a lot more countries that have not reported new variants, so in the next two weeks we will be distributing the vaccines to them,” he said. 

Another reason that was presented by Dr Nkengasong was that almost all the other vaccines that were readily available passed clinical trials based on the initial variant just like the astrazeneca vaccine.

“We do not yet have a vaccine that has gone through trial against the new variants because they were not there when the vaccines were manufactured and tested,” he said. 

Results

By this he was highlighting the fact that countries may opt for other vaccines that could yield results similar to those of the AstraZeneca when faced with new variants.

Dr Makadzange said they have made countries aware that even the other vaccines still required to be tested against the new variants.

The Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Health Dr Simon Zwane was asked if Eswatini would heed the expert advice on the vaccine and he said, “We are concluding consultations after which the minister will advise the nation.”

The Africa CDC on the other hand said countries were afforded an opportunity to use regional laboratories to conduct genome sequencing so that they could tell if they had new variants or not.

This is through the Africa CDC Pathogen Genomic Institute.

“Countries should take their samples to those laboratory and results should be out in less than two weeks,” he said.

The WHO facilitates transportation of samples to these labs, according to Dr Makadzange.

He said there are about 11 laboratories that offer genome sequencing in Africa.    

Countries that have the capacity to conduct genomic sequencing in Africa are Senegal, Gabon, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana and Uganda.

According to www.healthline.com. Genome sequencing  refers to sequencing the entire genome of an organism. • Many high throughput sequencing and data handling technologies have been developed. • Major genome sequencing methods are the clone-by-clone method and the whole genome shotgun sequencing.

Question and Answer Session         

Q: Does Africa CDC anticipate a delay in vaccination due to uncertainty caused by the findings made by South Africa? 

A: No. Delays should not occur. We should be distributing the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine we purchased in two weeks. We also have the other doses bought by MTN. We are also in talks with Johnson and Johnson. 

Q: Has the number of African countries who have ordered the vaccine through the COVAX platform increased?

A: Yes. Last week we had 16 countries, today we have 20 countries that have placed orders. The number is still growing. 

Q: What is the CDC doing to improve vaccine confidence?

A: These vaccines are safe. Let us not confuse safety with efficacy, which has changed due to new variants. We also have companies that are developing new vaccines. 

Q: What does South Africa’s switch from AstraZeneca mean to other countries?

A: Countries should have evidence that the new variant is predominant; otherwise there is absolutely no reason why this vaccine should not be used in countries without the new variants. Also, having report one or two cases does not mean the new variant has dominated. 

Q: Are there any new vaccines that are being tested against new variants?

A: We are working on that as a collective. More needs to be done to get more insight, so we need to develop protocols to deal with this issue. 

Q: What is the timeline for COVID-19 vaccine expiry dates?

A: Vaccines, in general, should allow at least a couple of months before expiration date. 

Q: Are there any countries that have told the CDC they will not roll out the AstraZeneca vaccine?

A: No. We have not received any concerns and no member state has expressed lack of interest in using the AstraZeneca vaccine. The WHO has issued guidelines and assured countries that they may continue with the vaccine.

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