“Without a plan, we should be in big trouble.”Īfrican health officials say the African continent is seeing a downward trend in new COVID-19 cases and deaths over the past month, but Moeti warned that another increase could come around the approaching holiday season. The African continent has few syringe manufacturers and none that make the Pfizer one, the WHO said.ĬOVID-19 vaccine donations to African countries are now surpassing syringe availability, and countries in some cases are having to source syringes separately, WHO vaccination official Phionah Atuhebwe told reporters. There is no global stockpile for the new auto-disposable syringe, and the market for them is “tight and extremely competitive,” the WHO said. Health officials said another complication is that the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19, used widely across Africa, requires a new and different syringe. “You have to get these syringes in a short timeline,” he said, “otherwise you have vaccines expiring in your hands.” The syringe shortage is already complicating COVID-19 vaccination efforts in Rwanda, which has been receiving COVID-19 vaccines with a “very short shelf life” of sometimes a month or two before expiration dates, Sabin Nsanzimana with the Rwanda Biomedical Center told reporters. Overall, the modeling “shows a sizeable gap now,” he said. Routine childhood vaccinations “are going to be impacted,” said Sibusiso Hlatjwako of the health organization PATH, which forecasts that the problem could persist “way into 2022.” PATH looked at data from manufacturers and said more than 100 countries around the world use the auto-disposable syringes affected. Already, some African countries including South Africa, Kenya and Rwanda have seen delays in receiving syringes, the WHO said. “The scarcity of syringes could paralyze progress,” the World Health Organization’s Africa director, Matshidiso Moeti, told reporters on Thursday. Just five of Africa’s 54 countries are expected to reach the target of fully vaccinating 40% of their populations by year’s end. The threatened shortage comes as the flow of COVID-19 vaccine doses increases after months of delays to the African continent, the world’s least protected region with less than 6% of its population of 1.3 billion people fully vaccinated. Another shot? CDC says some people may need 4th COVID vaccine dose
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