Unprotected African Health Workers Die As Rich Countries Buy up COVID-19 Vaccines | Science | AAAS

2/18/2021 Unprotected African health workers die as rich countries buy up COVID-19 vaccines | Science | AAAS

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Got a tip? How to contact the news team Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, one of 130 countries that don’t have COVID-19 vaccines yet. KB Advertisement MPOFU/STRINGER/GETTY IMAGES Unprotected African health workers die as rich countries buy up COVID-19 vaccines

By Kai Kupferschmidt Feb. 17, 2021 , 2:45 PM

Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation.

On 6 January, gastroenterologist Leolin Katsidzira received a troubling message from his colleague James Gita Hakim, a heart specialist and noted HIV/AIDS researcher. Hakim, chair of the department of medicine at the University of Zimbabwe, had fallen sick and had tested positive for COVID-19. He was admitted to a hospital in Harare 10 days later and moved to an intensive care unit (ICU) after his condition deteriorated. He died on 26 January.

It is a crushing loss to Zimbabwean medicine, Katsidzira says. “Don’tSuppor forget: Wte nonpr have hadot a huge science brain dr journalismain. So Sciencepeople's extensiv like Jamese CO VID-19are people cover agewho is k freepee ttheo all system readers. To support our nonprot going,” hescience adds. journalism,Scientists pleasearound mak thee worlda tax-deductible mourned gift today. Hakim as well. He was “a unique research leader, a Donate Not Now https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/unprotected-african-health-workers-die-rich-countries-buy-covid-19-vaccines?utm_source=Nature+Briefing… 1/6 2/18/2021 Unprotected African health workers die as rich countries buy up COVID-19 vaccines | Science | AAAS Donate Not Now brilliant clinical scientist and mentor, humble, welcoming and empowering,” wrote Melanie Abas, a collaborator at King’s College London.

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See all of our coverage of the coronavirus outbreak 25% op M line matrassen, ook geldig op kernen in combinatie met covers. But Hakim’s death also highlights a stark reality in the global response to the coronavirus pandemic. Countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas have administered more than 175 million shots to protect people against COVID-19 since December 2020, with most countries giving priority to medical workers. But not a single country in sub-Saharan Africa has started immunizations —South Africa will be the rst, this week—leaving health Advertisement care workers dying in places where they are scarce to begin with.

The exact toll of COVID-19 among health workers is hard to gauge, but Hakim was one of several prominent doctors to succumb in recent weeks in Africa, which has suffered a second pandemic wave. Just 1 day before him, U.S. physician David Katzenstein, who had moved to Uw haardenspecialist Kissen BV Harare after his retirement and directed the Biomedical Research and Training Institute there, died from COVID-19 Kissen BV Openen at the sameSuppor hospital.t Thosenonpr lossesot sciencestand for many journalism Scienceothers,'s extensiv says Robere COVID-19t Schoole covery, agean infis frectiousee to all disease readers. To supporLatestt our Newsnonprot researcherscience at the journalism, University please of California, make a tax-deductible San Diego, who gift today. worked with Hakim for many years. “We don’t hear about Trending Donate Not Now https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/unprotected-african-health-workers-die-rich-countries-buy-covid-19-vaccines?utm_source=Nature+Briefing… 2/6 2/18/2021 Unprotected African health workers die as rich countries buy up COVID-19 vaccines | Science | AAAS Donate Not Now a lot of the others who are laboring in the health care 1. Postage stamp to honor female physicist who many say should have won the Nobel Prize workforce behind them.”

Neighboring Mozambique lost an anesthesiologist, a 2. Watch blue whales try to dodge ships in Patagonia gastroenterologist, and a urologist in recent weeks, says parasitologist Emilia Noormahomed of Eduardo 3. Nearly 6000-year-old chewing gum reveals life of Mondlane University, as well as two young general care ancient girl physicians. Several more are seriously ill. Such losses hit hard in Mozambique, which only has about eight doctors 4. Lizards may be protecting people from Lyme per 100,000 people, compared with almost 300 in the disease in the southeastern United States United States. “It will literally take an entire generation to rebuild” from such losses, says Ashish Jha, dean of 5. Fever, aches from Pzer, Moderna jabs aren’t dangerous but may be intense for some Brown University’s School of Public Health.

Global inequities have existed since the start of the Most Read

COVID-19 pandemic. ICUs, ventilators, and oxygen are 1. Danish scientists see tough times ahead as they scarce throughout the African continent, for instance. But watch more contagious COVID-19 virus surge in the early months, the basic public health measures required to control spread of the virus put countries more 2. ‘A question of choices.’ Pzer vaccine leader on confronting new coronavirus variants or less on an equal footing, says John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. 3. Rivers could generate thousands of nuclear And Africa has weathered the pandemic relatively well, in power plants worth of energy, thanks to a new ‘blue’ part because of its young population. 4. Suspicions grow that nanoparticles in Pzer’s But now, the rollout of vaccines has put rich countries at aCOVID-19 vaccine trigger rare allergic reactions denitive advantage. Many have bet on several vaccines and signed contracts for enough doses to immunize their 5. Major nutrition study aims to learn which diet populations several times over, constraining supplies for best suits your genes and gut the rest of the world. According to the World Health Sifter Organization (WHO), three-quarters of all vaccinations so Astronomers spy promising blob far have happened in 10 countries that account for 60% around our nearest neighbor star, but is it a planet? of global gross domestic product; 130 countries have yet By Daniel Clery Feb. 11, 2021 to administer a single dose. “I don’t know why there isn’t a massive clamor to do something about that,” says Gavin It is not a ower. It is a fungus! Yamey of Duke University’s Global Health Institute. “The By Soa Moutinho Feb. 4, 2021 world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Ethiopian-born director-general of WHO, said in January. In a joint Watch blue whales try to dodge Support nonprot science journalismships in Patagonia statement last week, he and UNICEF Executive Director Science's extensive COVID-19 coverage is free to all readers. To supporBy Sto oura M ononprutinhootFeb. 3, 2021 Henrietta Fore called on governments that have science journalism, please make a tax-deductible gift today. vaccinated health workers and those at highest risk to In biblical times, purple was the Donate Not Now https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/unprotected-african-health-workers-die-rich-countries-buy-covid-19-vaccines?utm_source=Nature+Briefing… 3/6 2/18/2021 Unprotected African health workers die as rich countries buy up COVID-19 vaccines | Science | AAAS Donate Not Now share doses with other countries, and on vaccine new black manufacturers to allocate vaccines equitably. By Soa Moutinho Jan. 29, 2021

The equity gap could soon extend to COVID-19 Nine hikers mysteriously perished therapeutics, as well. The rst drug convincingly shown toin the Russian mountains in 1959. cut the death rate from the virus, a steroid named Scientists may now know why dexamethasone, is cheap and used around the world; By Soa Moutinho Jan. 28, 2021 Hakim received it before he died. But tocilizumab, shown More Sifter to further reduce mortality in a U.K. study released on 11 February, is an antibody that’s about 100 times more expensive than dexamethasone and not widely available. “The [pandemic’s] second wave, and potentially the third, is fought with a combination of public health measures and biomedical interventions, and that will increase the inequities,” Nkengasong says.

Beyond the moral argument, there are sound economic and public health reasons to close the gap. Vaccinating those most at risk around the world would drive down hospitalizations and deaths everywhere sooner, allowing societies to reopen and economies to recover. It could also help reduce circulation of the virus globally, lowering the risk of new virus variants emerging.

WHO and other international organizations have worked to reduce the gap through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility, a joint mechanism to procure billions of doses of several vaccines and distribute them to participating countries. It is beginning to pay off, albeit slowly: On Monday, WHO gave an emergency use listing to two versions of the AstraZeneca–University of Oxford vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and SKBio, a South Korean company. COVAX expects to start supplying countries with these shots this month and to ship more than 300 million doses in the rst half of the year, including 1.15 million to Zimbabwe and 2.43 million to Mozambique. It is also planning to distribute 1.2 million dosesSuppor of the Pzt nonprer-BioNotTech science vaccine. journalism ScienceBruce's Aextensivylward,e aCO seniorVID-19 adviser coverage to is T fredreeos, to allconcedes readers. Ttheo support our nonprot initial supplyscience is only journalism, enough please to co makver ae asmall tax-deductible part of many gift today. developing countries’ populations. “But the reality is, we’re Donate Not Now https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/unprotected-african-health-workers-die-rich-countries-buy-covid-19-vaccines?utm_source=Nature+Briefing… 4/6 2/18/2021 Unprotected African health workers die as rich countries buy up COVID-19 vaccines | Science | AAAS Donate Not Now going to get a lot more doses to a lot more people in a lot more places a lot faster than ever would have happened without the COVAX Facility,” he says.

To secure more vaccine sooner, African countries have formed a vaccine acquisition task force that, with funding from mobile phone company MTN Group, has already bought 7 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine. The rst 1.5 million doses should be shipped to 19 countries on 22 February, allowing health care workers in those countries to be vaccinated by the end of that week. The overall aim is to vaccinate about 35% of the population in African countries before the end of the year and then another 25% next year, Nkengasong says. (Many Western countries hope to have their entire populations covered by this summer or fall.)

Schooley thinks the United States should take a more active role in protecting health care workers in countries such as Zimbabwe. The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, launched in 2003, has saved countless lives by providing more than $80 billion in the ght against HIV, he notes. “We have worked with our counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa for 20 years to try to help them build a more resilient health care infrastructure,” Schooley says, “and we’re sitting on our hands watching that be torn apart by the coronavirus.”

Posted in: Africa, Health, Coronavirus doi:10.1126/science.abh1288

Kai Kupferschmidt

Kai is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine based in Berlin, Germany. He is the author of a book about the color blue, published in 2019.  Twitter

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