Batswana who have received the Indian AstraZeneca shot may not receive the second jab within the recommended four to 12 weeks because the Indian government has restricted export of Covid-19 vaccines from its giant manufacturing hubs.
Botswana which is reported to be the most efficient Southern African country at getting the vaccines into the arms of at-risk groups has used up all its AstraZeneca supplies.
So far more than 47,000 Batswana have taken their first jab of AstraZeneca since March 26, about six weeks ago. This lot is due for their second shot which should be administered between four to 12 weeks, but there seems to be no AstraZeneca stock coming.
In early March, Botswana received its first consignment of AstraZeneca from the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access alliance, COVAX, the vaccine-sharing initiative that provides free and discounted doses for lower-income countries.
COVAX is largely reliant on India’s vaccine manufacturers who no longer supply the program because of India’s own Covid crisis.
The COVAX consortium has publicly stated that the Indian vaccine squeeze will reduce deliveries, telling CNN that 40 million doses were affected in March and 50 million doses in April.
But a senior humanitarian official familiar with COVAX planning said the situation could be much worse, saying that they hope deliveries will open up again in June. But with India’s domestic vaccine rollout struggling to make a dent, they said even that could be optimistic.
Clinical trials are currently examining the effectiveness and safety of mixing and matching different coronavirus vaccine. But authorities’ advice for now is to get the same vaccine for the first and second doses.
This is believed to be a setback for Botswana which was on track to be the first country in Africa to wholly vaccinate its citizens.
The Voice of America (VOA) reported recently that Botswana had reached agreements to get enough COVID-19 vaccine injections to treat the country whole adult population. Last month Botswana received 60,000 doses of the COVISHIELD vaccine, which is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. COVISHIELD is produced in cooperation with the makers of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The country further received an additional 200,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine from China. Botswana is expecting the biggest consignment of 1.1 million doses from U.S. manufacturer Johnson & Johnson. Should the country receive the 1.9 million vaccine doses it hopes for, it could become the first African nation to be fully vaccinated.
