Photographer: Rodger Bosch / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Rodger Bosch / AFP / Getty Images
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Some of South Africa’s top medical and academic leaders have called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to fire government officials for delays in purchasing vaccines against Covid-19, saying their actions will cause thousands of deaths and countless economic damage. .
The lawsuit was filed in an opinion piece directed by News24, the country’s largest Internet news site, and signed by nine people, including Glenda Gray, chair of the South African Medical Research Council, and officials from other health organizations, hospitals and universities.
Although at least 29 countries ranging from Mexico to Germany have begun inoculating their populations against the virus, South Africa has not yet concluded any agreement for direct supply with pharmaceutical companies. The country has commissioned vaccines at the Covax facility, an initiative designed to ensure equitable access to vaccines, but which will only cover 10% of the population, about 60 million, and will reach the second quarter of the year. Even then a charity left the deposit after the government defaulted on a term that was announced.
Vaccine failure is an “unforgivable failure, which will be measured in lives lost in thousands of people, disease by the tens of thousands, a broken health system and deep and continuing economic damage,” health and academic leaders said. to opinion article. Ramaphosa will have to “handle the ax against members and officials of his administration who are responsible for this dangerous fiasco and who immediately set out to correct the course.”
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Ramaphosa’s acting spokesman Tyrone Seale said he could comment after the presidency examined the article. The health ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
South Africa, with more than 1.09 million confirmed Covid-19 infections and 29,175 deaths, is the hardest hit country on the African continent. According to government estimates, its economy probably shrank by nine decades last year.
Criticism adds to the attacks on the vaccination strategy by opposition parties and the country’s largest labor unions, allied with the ruling party.
With the world’s largest HIV epidemic and hundreds of thousands of TB patients, South Africa has a sophisticated health system with world-leading scientists. At least three trials of the Covid-19 vaccine are underway in the country and Johnson & Johnson has agreed to make 300 million of its Covid-19 vaccines in one Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd. Factory in the country when the shot is approved.
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“Public recognition by officials that it has not seemed prudent to start bilateral negotiations with vaccine providers because they could not“ take the risk ”of ordering vaccines in case they do not work is surprisingly naive,” health leaders said.
They also criticized the so-called ministerial advisory committee, a group of scientists appointed by Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, to echo the government’s arguments.
Gray and Francois Venter, an academic who signed the opinion piece, were removed from the committee last year by Mkhize. Both have previously been critical of the government’s approach to the virus.
(Update infections, deaths in the sixth paragraph)