Demand for COVID shots drops in Africa as supply rises

When Africans asked for COVID shots, they didn't get them. Now they don't want them Demand for COVID shots drops in Africa as supply rises. Edward Mcallister,Cooper Inveen Reuters

....

The perception that COVID-19 doesn't pose a significant threat is common in Ghana's capital and elsewhere in Africa, whose youthful populace has suffered a fraction of the casualties that have driven vaccine uptake in places like Europe and America, where the disease tore through elderly populations. ...

Only 17% of Africa's 1.3 billion population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 - versus above 70% in some countries - in part because richer nations hoarded supply last year, when global demand was greatest, to the chagrin of African nations desperate for international supplies.

Now though, as doses finally arrive in force in the continent, inoculation rates are falling. The number of shots administered dropped 35% in March, World Health Organization data shows, erasing a 23% rise seen in February. People are less afraid now. Misinformation about vaccines has festered.

"If we had gotten vaccines earlier, this kind of thing wouldn't happen so often," Christina Odei, the COVID-19 team leader at the Mamprobi clinic, said of the low uptake in Accra. "Initially everyone really wanted it, but we didn't have the vaccines."

That worries public health specialists who say that leaving such a large population unvaccinated increases the risk of new variants emerging on the continent before spreading to regions such as Europe just as governments there abandon mask mandates and travel restrictions.

In a sign of possible perils to come, cases of two Omicron subvariants have shot up in recent weeks in South Africa, the continent's worst-hit nation, prompting officials there to warn of a fifth wave of infections.  ...