Wariness about taking AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine in Africa could be compounded by the African Union’s decision to halt plans to procure the shot, health experts said on Friday, calling for public awareness programmes to fight misinformation.
The African Union (AU) said its announcement was not related to recent findings by European and British medicine regulators that there are possible links between the vaccine and extremely rare blood clots, but rather a case of diversifying options.
Still, experts said the timing of Thursday’s announcement could fuel vaccine hesitancy.
“The announcement happening around the same time the European medical authority shared concerns over blood clots gives people more reason to amplify misinformation,” said Gregory Rockson, founder of Africa-wide healthcare provider mPharma, which is based in Ghana.
“We need strong political leadership and clear messaging to fight growing vaccine scepticism,” said Rockson, adding that less than 2% of the Ghanaian population had been vaccinated so far.
The AU said it did not want to replicate the World Health Organization-backed COVAX initiative to ensure equitable access of vaccines for low-income countries, and was focusing on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to supply 400 million doses.
COVAX aims to deliver 600 million shots – most of them from AstraZeneca – to some 40 African countries this year, enough to vaccinate 20% of their populations.
But with South Africa selling the AstraZeneca vaccine to other AU member states following concern it would be less effective in fighting the local variant, fears over using the shot have spread to other countries, health experts said.
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