Africa Refuses To Buy More Vaccines From Moderna
Only around 400 million of the over 700 million medicines sent to Africa have been used, having left hundreds of millions on the shelf to decompose. As such a climate prevails, Africa has refused to buy more vaccines from Moderna.
Prepare for a fresh round of COVID scaremongering as Big Pharma attempts to promote a second (then a third, then a fourth…) booster dosage as sales declines (despite scientists’ constant warnings about a new hybrid mutant strain).
Due to declining interest, two of the globe’s most prominent supranational groups representing low- and middle-income nations have opted not to acquire hundreds of millions of further doses of Moderna’s vaccine, reports Bloomberg.
As developing countries find it difficult to identify sufficient consumers keen to be vaccinated, the African Union and Covax, a Bill Gates and WHO-backed organization devoted to propagating (low-cost) immunisations around the world, have decided to forego purchasing more vaccines (as the Us starts rolling out a second booster for older patients).
Of course, it is not simply demand that is holding vaccination levels down: developing countries have struggled to convert supply into inoculations, according to Bloomberg. Lower-income nations that were left out of the worldwide rollout are now dealing with a shortage of funding, skepticism, supply-chain challenges, and other problems that are preventing distribution.
Source: Bloomberg
COVID cases, deaths, and hospitalizations have all decreased drastically outside of China and Hong Kong. As a result, demand has been stifled.
Furthermore, after more than a year of receiving the shorter end of the stick from Western vaccine manufacturers, developing countries have grown disgruntled, as more customers believe that if they have got this far without vaccinations, they do not need them presently.
“The vaccine landscape has changed drastically in recent months,” said Safura Abdool Karim, a public-health lawyer and researcher in Johannesburg who’s focused on equity in the pandemic. “We went from really needing vaccines super urgently to now having them.”
While the African Union promised to buy 50 million pills in the first quarter, it decided not to buy another 60 million doses in the second.
Meanwhile, Covax declined to purchase 166 million pills for delivery in Q3 and also declined another option for 166 million doses in Q4. Although, according to a representative for the group, negotiations for a new round of acquisitions are still ongoing.
Africa has the lowest immunization percentage in the globe, with only 15% of the continent’s population fully immunized. According to the WHO, this contrasts to a worldwide average of 57 percent. Only around 400 million of the more over 700 million medicines sent to Africa have been used, having left hundreds of millions on the shelf to decompose.
- Source : GreatGameIndia
