With limited vaccine manufacturing capacity around the world, South Africa will have to prioritise its own requirements in the interest of securing access to a vaccine as a matter of national security.
This is according to Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation Dr Blade Nzimande, who says the first successful vaccines are expected to be delivered in early 2021.
“However, the upscaling of the manufacturing pipeline for hundreds of millions, or even billions, of doses will require intense collaboration and needs to be done in such a way that it will not compromise the production of other essential vaccines,” he adds.
“In order for South Africa to be able to secure early access to, and delivery of, safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines and treatments as soon as they become available, we will be developing and implementing a comprehensive Covid-19 Vaccine Strategy.”
The strategy’s aims include ensuring an adequate supply of a safe and effective vaccine to achieve population immunity to Covid-19.
Nzimande says the current operations of Biovac, a company established in 2003 as a public-private partnership to produce local vaccines in South Africa, will be expanded as a step in ensuring Covid-19 vaccines can be manufactured for African use by an African company.
He adds that the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) is in the final stages of preparation for a study to determine three things: the extent of SARS-Cov-2 virus infection in the general population with age-specific prevalence, as determined by seropositivity; the proportion of asymptomatic or subclinical Covid-19 infections; and the incidence rate of Covid-19 infections as determined by change from negative to positive sero-status in an embedded cohort of respondents in the four most-affected metropolitan municipalities (Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay).
The proposed study will use two waves of cross-sectional population-based household sero-prevalence surveys, targeting urban areas, and both formal and informal rural areas.
The HSRC is also working with Higher Health, a Department of Higher Education and Training initiative, to carry out a Covid-19 knowledge and attitude study in young people. The results of the online survey are almost complete and will be made available to the public in due course.
Regarding Covid-19 surveillance, existing health and demographic surveillance operations at three rural nodes have been converted to incorporate Covid-19 telephonic surveillance and case finding. The nodes are at Bushbuckridge Local Municipality (Mpumalanga), Capricorn District Municipality (Limpopo) and Umkhanyakude District Municipality (KwaZulu-Natal).
The operations cover 300 000 residents in these areas. The surveillance measures the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions against Covid-19 on rural households and individual mental health, and supports local health authorities in their fight against the virus.
“We will also be undertaking wastewater Covid-19 surveillance work at some identified Gauteng nodal points. This will contribute to an early warning system for Covid-19 resurgence, as well as other emerging pathogens,” Nzimande says.