By Zayamu Hassan
The Africa Health Budget Network (AHBN), has called on donors and the international community to always donate vaccines that have a minimum of 10-weeks shelf-life span to countries the need them.
The AHBN Vaccines and Essential Drugs Associate, Khadija Hamid Bobboyi, made the call at a dialogue with Civil Society Groups, Media and Advocates on ‘Understanding COVID-19 Vaccines Procurement & Delivery Mechanisms for Africa.’
The dialogue which was online brought experts, CSOs, media and advocates from different countries in Africa.
Bobboyi further called on the COVID-19 donors and manufacturers to only donate vaccines that are of high “quantity and predictability, earmarking, and minimum of 10 weeks shelf life when they arrive in-country.”
Other areas of consideration when donating the vaccines, according to her, include early notice, response times and ancillaries.
She further noted that donations from COVAX and AVAT to African countries “must be made in a way that allows countries to effectively mobilize domestic resources in support of rollout vaccination and enables long-term planning to increase coverage rates.”
The objectives of the dialogue, according to her, was to Inform African CSOs, Media and Advocates on various global and regional procurement and delivery mechanisms for COVID-19 in Africa; improve transparency and accountability of procurement and delivery mechanisms for COVID-19 in Africa and deliberate on recommendations to deepen African CSOs, Media and Advocates participation for COVID- 19 related issues in Africa.
Commenting on the opportunities available for African countries, Bobboyi disclosed that Africa is getting free donations of vaccines and support from the international community.
“Availability of multiple sources of COVID-19 vaccine and at a subsidized rate and African Union and Partners have established AVAT to augment donations from the international donor community,” she said.
She, however, regretted that there are challenges in accessing the COVID-19 vaccines provided by the donors.
She explained that: “Multiple mechanisms may pose a problem because some countries may receive more and others less without proper analysis of which country is in more need of the vaccines and majority of the donations to-date have been ad hoc, provided with little notice and short shelf lives and become expired.”
