Remarks by WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti
Excellence Madame la Ministre de la Santé, de la Population, de la Promotion de la Femme et de l’Intégration de la Femme au Développement de la République du Congo, Présidente de la soixante-dixième session du Comité régional de l'OMS pour l'Afrique,
Honourable Ministers of Health and dear colleagues:
Good morning and I’d like to express our sincere thanks, first of all to you chair for working with us in preparing this meeting and the Honourable Ministers and the delegates of countries for joining this meeting on the COVID-19 vaccines, as countries in our Region get set to embark on the largest ever global immunization drive.
I would like to start by thanking you and your teams for the intense preparations in anticipation of the roll out of the COVID-19 vaccines – work that you have been doing in addition to all your efforts to prevent the transmission of the COVID-19 virus. We know that the Heads of State have led this work admirably. The communities have responded even though we see some signs of fatigue on their part, and health workers have sacrificed a lot to contain the spread of the virus.
The work that you have done in preparation for the vaccine roll out will help us to ensure that African countries hit the ground running in immunizing priority groups as soon as the vaccines are available. Arrival of vaccines in countries will be one thing but ensuring that those vaccines are given to all the priority groups identified across the length and breadth of each country, will be the most important achievement. So, our working together on meticulous preparation is critical.
In recent weeks, there have been rapid developments that will help to pave the way for rollout across the continent. This briefing is an opportunity to share updates on these recent developments and to answer any questions you may have.
We have observed with regret that wealthy countries have started to vaccinate millions of their citizens and, in addition to being disappointed, we have used this opportunity to finalize our planning. I would like to acknowledge the efforts of the African Union chaired by the President of South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa, to work to obtain additional vaccine supplies for African countries in addition to those we are working, through the COVAX platform, to obtain. There has been a unique mobilization of African experts, private sector leaders, philanthropists and businesses, and we hope that this model of working together, mobilized by our governments and political leaders, will continue as a feature of our health development into the future.
On Monday this week, WHO gave a positive decision on the Emergency Use Listing (or EUL) of two versions of COVID-19 vaccines produced by AstraZeneca in the Republic of Korea and by the Serum Institute of India. This means that both vaccines can now be rolled out globally via COVAX. This is the second EUL, as it is called given by WHO, after the Pfizer-BionTech vaccine in December 2020.
Nearly 90 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been allocated to African countries. These are now set for deployment, along with 320,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine that are ready to be shipped to those countries that were selected to receive them.
I am aware that the good news about emergency use listing, comes amidst the concern and uncertainty as to how the variants, especially B1351 which was first identified in South Africa reduce the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing mild and moderate disease. The group of experts called the SAGE convened by WHO last week, recommended that countries use the vaccine for priority groups, even when variants, including this variant first identified in South Africa. We will hear more about this and how to manage that challenge in the presentation.
The work of the Africa Pathogen Genomics Initiative, convened jointly with Africa CDC, is supporting surveillance, including building and expanding capacities to conduct sequencing, to determine the spread of new variants and to inform the public health response, including vaccination strategies. This is more important than ever and very urgent. I therefore urge you, Honourable Ministers, to focus on strengthening sequencing capacities, and I assure you of WHO’s support on this.
We will continue working with you, and with the Africa CDC and other partners, to interpret recommendations and findings to specific country contexts, to provide adapted guidance and support, and to facilitate conversations between neighbouring countries to share experiences and approaches.
All these developments underscore the importance of information sharing and a coordinated approach on the roll out of the vaccines, as well as for surveillance and for continued evaluation of variants and their potential effect on vaccines.
These developments also highlight the need for a diverse portfolio of safe and efficacious vaccines. At the same time, manufacturers must be, and we understand that they are, prepared to adjust to the viral evolution of the COVID-19 virus including potentially providing booster shots and adapted vaccines, for which clinical findings from our settings will be vital.
I’d like to thank you, Ministers for the accelerated work under very tight deadlines to get national deployment and vaccination plans in on time. The review of these plans was highly inclusive. We coordinated a regional group of experts from different partners and it was also rigorous and overall the plans were found to be of high quality, with a strong intention by countries to begin the rollout.
We were pleased to support Namibia and Equatorial Guinea who, as self-financing countries, were not strictly required to submit plans but underwent the process and finalized their plans as part of enhanced preparedness for the roll out of the vaccines. We look forward to providing this advice and support to other self-financing countries.
The approved plans provide an important framework for successful immunization campaigns. They are an essential requirement for receiving vaccines via COVAX and will be useful in delivering those obtained through other sources (such as the African Union platform, bilateral deals or vaccine donations). We have agreed with the African Union that these plans will serve also for their purposes.
Through the African Vaccine Regulatory Forum, called AVAREF, we are orientating national regulatory authorities on assessing and authorizing the use of new COVID-19 vaccines, while ensuring an expedited process for vaccines listed by WHO for emergency use.
We are also looking at lessons learnt by countries across the world that have commenced vaccination to inform the implementation of plans developed by Member States in the African Region. I would also like to suggest, Ministers that we do in the Region have a lot of experience in implementing campaigns, most recently for polio, and suggest that you and your teams analyse the problems that you have encountered, the difficulties that you have had to overcome in rolling out these plans and ensure that they are factored into the plans that have been developed. We will provide further updates on the progress of preparedness activities for the roll out of the vaccines in the presentation to be made by my colleague, Dr Mihigo.
We also would like to advise, where you have the time, for you to consider carrying out simulations of what you are going to do. This also is another way of identifying potential problems and making sure that once you begin the implementation, it goes as smoothly as possible.
Finally, we recognize that the spread of misinformation and disinformation around COVID-19, and vaccines in particular, is one of the biggest threats to successful rollout of COVID-19 immunization campaigns. I have become aware that one of the countries where the roll out is starting early with health care workers is seeing some hesitation by health care workers, some are posing questions about to vaccines to accept the vaccine.
To respond to the misinformation and to these hesitations, late last year we launched African Infodemic Response Alliance (AIRA), a network of 12 organizations dedicated to creating a healthier information landscape. So, we work with partners who regularly follow the social media and other exchange platforms to see what people are thinking, what people are hearing, what people are fearing and then we work together to disseminate the correct information.
This is an area where we all play a role, Honourable Ministers, in communicating clearly to the public on the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines to ensure there is high acceptance and demand for these life-saving products in African communities and countries. It is important that we communicate correct information simply, through trusted sources and networks.
In closing, I’d like to say that vaccines are a key tool to sustainably reducing the risk of severe disease and death in the African Region, while offering the possibility for livelihoods and economies to recover. We must press on with rolling out available vaccines that have proven to be safe and efficacious as quickly as possible, while accelerating all the work that’s going on to collect more data on efficacy including accelerating the Region’s genomic sequencing and surveillance capacities. We are very prepared to mobilize all the capacities required to ensure that these capacities are rapidly developed in our countries.
We are increasing our capacity also to provide intensified technical support and guidance to accompany the roll out of immunization drives. This again is in close collaboration with Africa CDC, with Gavi, with UNICEF and other partners to ensure coordination and maximum synergy.
The COVID-19 vaccines are however, no silver bullet. Even as they are rolled out, public health measures continue to be vital to test, isolate and care for cases as well as to trace and isolate contacts. This is in addition to the preventive measures of physical distancing, frequent hand hygiene, and wearing masks correctly that we have to keep on encouraging our communities to practice.
I would like to end by acknowledging the unfolding Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Guinea, where our colleagues are working quickly to support the governments to trace and control the spread of disease, while supporting efforts to procure and rollout vaccines to protect communities and also therapeutics to prevent deaths. These outbreaks are a reminder that other public health emergencies are still occurring in our Region, other health-care and prevention needs must continue to be met, and strong emergency preparedness and response capacities, including integrated disease surveillance and response, remain critical.
So, I’d like to thank you again for having joined us at this briefing under such short notice. I’d like to thank the Chair for her collaboration and support for the preparation of this meeting and I look forward very much to our discussions in the next hour. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, Chair.