The ability to roll out credible, sustainable and high-volume Covid-19 vaccination programmes will likely be the single biggest driver of economic recovery in Africa over the next 24 months. Economies that fail on this will be left behind as global trading resumes. The cost will be devastating.
The devastation to numerous sectors within our economy is motivation enough to do the right thing. Tourism has been one of the hardest hit and continues to increase the burden of unemployment which is now closer to 35% and climbing.
As the majority of our hotels sit empty and restaurants and bars are subject to unpredictable closure periods, it’s hard to believe we will ever return to a life without social distancing and masks. But there is hope.
Local manufacture and procurement should be at the centre of our future to ensure economic recovery and meeting healthcare challenges.
Lack of manufacturing capacity has resulted in Africa being at the mercy of the rest of the world in the supply of protective personal equipment (PPE), medical devices and vaccines.
While the SA vaccine rollout was slow to start, the country is now considered one of the fastest, measured on a weekly basis.
Across the rest of Africa, the African vaccine acquisition task team (Avatt), set up by President Cyril Ramaphosa, has played a meaningful role in supporting the objective to ensure at least 60% of Africans are vaccinated.
The partnership created between JSE-listed pharmaceutical group Aspen and Johnson & Johnson has significantly fast tracked this delivery of vaccines into Africa with a single-dose injection, well suited for the continent.
According to the CEO of Imperial Logistics, it is about 10 times more expensive to deliver vaccines within Africa versus the rest of the world.
Containment of costs can be achieved through increased use of data and technology – and through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) that started trading in January 2021.
The vaccine rollout has proven the ability of public and private sector to successfully collaborate, spearheaded by Business for South Africa (B4SA). Public-private partnerships (PPPs) must continue in something resembling more business as usual than an exceptional occurrence driven by a crisis.
What is clear from events of the past 18 months is that a well-run and capacitated public sector is an essential part of the healthcare ecosystem, but the private sector has the skills, capital and reach to rapidly bring projects online.
Get vaccinated because the cost of not doing so, is simply too high. The vaccines work and they are safe. In the US, reports by Andy Slavitt (former adviser to the Biden administration on Covid-19) suggest that 98-99% of the deaths are from unvaccinated patients.
Closer to home, the infection and death rates in front line workers dramatically decreased in the third wave versus the first, while our ICU and high-care beds are home to the unvaccinated.
There is a consensus among healthcare players that the economy is falling prey to those that are health illiterate and do not understand the importance of being vaccinated and/or are afraid of what the vaccine does to your body.
The population has been subjected to information overload, misinformation, and fear mongering. Creating awareness through education and empowering patients with the facts and knowledge that vaccines are safe, is key to getting more people vaccinated.
Unless we break the chain of transmission, the virus will continue to mutate and we run the risk of current vaccines not being effective. As children remain unvaccinated, we need to safeguard them, at the very least, from future unknown variants.
An unvaccinated population will continue to put strain on hospital systems where critical clinical pathways such as oncology has seen a dramatic decline as a result.
The past 18 months have proven that the healthcare sector is a dynamic one and has responded in a collaborative manner.
As an organisation funding companies across multiple industries, we look forward to applying our experience and delivering innovative initiatives to raise awareness, encourage the right dialogue and ultimately support and grow economies across the continent.
• Eustace is head of healthcare, construction and hospitality at Absa
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