COVID-19 vaccines face expiry from April
Mbongeni Mguni | Monday March 21, 2022 06:00
In January, health authorities announced that all the vaccines ordered by the country since the life-saving medication became available, had arrived in the country creating a stockpile in hand of three million doses.
Most adults received their full or partial vaccinations last year but vaccination rates for boosters have not mirrored the initial enthusiasm that greeted the countrywide vaccination programme when it began last March.
While the extension of vaccination to those aged between 12 and 17 years old has received high responses from the targetted age group, it is understood the stockpile in hand has not substantially declined.
Yesterday, Health Ministry spokesperson, Christopher Nyanga told Mmegi a batch of the vaccines was expiring next month.
“The first batch of vaccines to expire will do so in April 2022,” he said. “We are currently unable to make a computation of vaccine doses from this batch, which will remain unused after that date, since the vaccination process is ongoing.”
Analysts believe that milder wave of COVID-19 caused by the Omicron variant could have played a role in dampening enthusiasm for vaccinations. While the Delta variant between June and August last year caused the worst wave of the pandemic in Botswana, with record hospitalisations and deaths, the Omicron period which started in December has been comparably less aggressive.
The declining number of deaths and hospitalisations, together with the easing of the restrictions and the end of the State of Emergency last September, could also be contributing to more people not viewing COVID-19 as a serious threat and vaccinations as an urgent need.
“Omicron was only ‘milder’ because more people were vaccinated by the time it came along,” a local physician told Mmegi on condition of anonymity for professional reasons. “In fact, Omicron should have taught us the importance of vaccinating and boosting just as Delta taught us what happens when fewer people are vaccinated.”
For his part, Nyanga said the Health Ministry was yet to conduct a study into the reasons behind the lower update of vaccines.
“It can only be suspected that some people may not be too keen to turn up for COVID-19 vaccination due to the reduced disease burden in the country,” he said. “The ministry however, wishes to encourage Batswana to come for COVID-19 vaccination if not vaccinated or if due for booster shots because COVID-19 remains an existential threat to their lives and livelihoods, even as infection figures seem to be going down in Botswana.”
Nyanga said the ministry has an ongoing robust education campaign that encourages people to get vaccinated and to always follow all COVID-19 protocols in order to protect themselves and others. "Different District Health Management Teams across the country have rolled out vaccination campaigns to reach as many people as possible and most have set up vaccination sites at shopping centres given the multitudes of people who throng these areas,” he said.
“Although we are generally satisfied with the level at which Batswana have heeded the ministry calls for vaccination against COVID-19, we wish more could come for booster shots,” Nyanga said. “We are encouraged by those who are currently heeding the call. We however, wish more numbers could be coming forth. “It is difficult to make predictions about the future given the unpredictable nature of COVID-19 or any pandemic for that matter. “However, the ministry believes that with the amount of knowledge that has so far been gained about COVID-19, Batswana are more vigilant and in a position to do anything that may be required of them to avert any surge in cases.”
It is understood that while COVID-19 cases are presently trending below 10 per 100,000 people countrywide, health authorities are wary of the upcoming winter period, where COVID-19 could surge due to more people spending time indoors.
Speaking at a televised discussion on Monday, the Health Ministry’s deputy permanent secretary, Tshepo Machacha said while cases, hospitalisations and deaths had declined since the Delta peak, January had recorded 24,282 cases with 106 deaths, showing that the virus was still active in the population.
Machacha said even cases of the earlier Delta variant had been picked among unvaccinated individuals, raising the possibility that it could be passed onto others.
“It also shows that those who had not vaccinated suffered more severe cases and accounted for more deaths. “We also saw the same with those who had vaccinated long ago and also had other diseases. “That’s why we are worried about going into winter,” he said.
Machacha added that as COVID-19 cases declined, queues for other illnesses and procedures such as eye-care could be seen at public institutions. This, he said, underlined the need for people to vaccinate in order to control the pandemic and allow health authorities to deal with other illnesses and conditions.
Speaking in the same televised address, Ishmael Makone, acting commissioning manager at Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital, said the institution had noted that unvaccinated patients had more severe outcomes from COVID-19 compared to the vaccinated.
“We see both the vaccinated and unvaccinated coming through but the different is that the unvaccinated have more severe impacts and we often end up taking them to high dependence care such as the ICU,” he said. “Even with the deaths, these are mainly the unvaccinated.”
The hospital, which is the country’s main referral centre for COVID-19, currently has ten patients in care, compared to a record 353 at the height of the Delta wave last July.
Botswana bought a total of 4.7 million doses of COVID-19 last year which include two million from Pfizer, 1.35 million from Johnson & Johnson, as well as 500,000 from Moderna. Other suppliers include AstraZeneca, Sinovac and COVAXIN.
While deliveries were slow, the final supply of the vaccines arrived in early January.