Kenya Vaccine Shortfall May Highlight Covid Treatment Need

A key factor for the pharmaceutical sales sector in the near future may be the provision of drugs to fight Covid, not just for particularly vulnerable patients in the west like the elderly, but also a wider section of the population in countries with low vaccine take-up.

For the life science sales sector, that is not necessarily going to involve sales directly to countries, especially poorer nations in the developing world but to agencies providing aid to such nations in the form of extra medical treatments to combat the virus.

One such possible case could be in Kenya, where the country’s health minister Mutahi Kagwe has tweeted that 840,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have had to be destroyed after expiring on February 28^th.

The vaccines had arrived in January via the Covax scheme and while this should have provided enough time to distribute them, the ministry said that henceforth it would only accept supplies with at least four months before expiry.

A key issue noted by Mr Kagwe was vaccine hesitancy. He said: “We continue to witness vaccine hesitancy attributed to rumours and misinformation especially around fertility concerns.”

With a large proportion of the population of Kenta and other African nations unvaccinated and vulnerable to infection without any prior immune memory, the chances of serious disease are higher and it may be that international efforts will need to focus on the new antiviral drugs that have been developed to help combat the disease.

According to the World Health Association, as of March 18^th a total of 10.93 billion vaccines had been administered across the globe. However, with some people in developed countries having had as many as four jabs, that amounts to only 57 people per 100 globally who are fully vaccinated.

In Africa this drops to just 12.35 per cent, with Kenya faring slightly better at 14.7 per cent. The rate is below one per cent in countries such as Chad and Burundi.