COVID-19 Vaccines: AHBN seeks 10-week in-country shelf life for donations to Africa

The Africa Health Budget Network (AHBN) has called on the international community, particularly donors and manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines to ensure a minimum of 10 weeks shelf life for vaccines donated to Africa countries, when they arrive in-country. AHBN Vaccines and Essential Drugs Associate, Pharmacist Khadija Hamid Bobboyi, made the call during the organisation’s Africa […]

The Africa Health Budget Network (AHBN) has called on the international community, particularly donors and manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines to ensure a minimum of 10 weeks shelf life for vaccines donated to Africa countries, when they arrive in-country.

AHBN Vaccines and Essential Drugs Associate, Pharmacist Khadija Hamid Bobboyi, made the call during the organisation’s Africa Regional Webinar series.

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This month’s edition was tagged ‘Understanding COVID-19 vaccines procurement and delivery mechanisms for Africa; Dialogue with civil society organisations and advocates.’

She said they should also commit to the following standards: quantity and predictability, earmarking, early notice, response times and ancillaries in the delivery of the vaccines.

Bobboyi said donations from COVAX and the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) to African countries must be made in a way that allows countries to effectively mobilise domestic resources in support of rollout vaccination and enables long-term planning to increase coverage rates.

She said one of the challenges in COVID-19 vaccine donations to African countries is that the majority of them to-date have been adhoc, provided with little notice and short shelf lives and become expired.

She said multiple mechanisms may also 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.

However, she added that the various global and regional procurement and delivery mechanisms for COVID-19 vaccine in Africa had offered the continent the opportunity to get free donations of vaccines and support from the international community.

While saying it has ensured availability of multiple sources of COVID-19 vaccine and at a subsidised rate, she said the African Union and partners have established AVAT to augment donations from the international donor community.