S Africa cuts back Covid vaccine drive amid citizen apathy

Bloomberg: South Africa is scaling back its Covid-19 vaccination drive and may have to destroy doses because of a lack of demand from citizens even as the country heads into a fifth wave of infections.

Take up has slowed to the point where keeping some sites running is unaffordable, said Nicholas Crisp, deputy director-general at the department of health and the person in charge of the program. Covid-19 vaccinations will need to be incorporated into South Africa’s standard medical programs, which means these specific shots will be less accessible, he said.

“No one is arriving” to get shots, Crisp said in an interview. “The numbers are just terrible.”

Only about half of South Africa’s 40 million adults are fully protected, about a year after doses were first made available to the public. While government was heavily criticised before that for being slow to secure vaccines, hesitancy is now its biggest problem. The 18 to 39 age group is the most reluctant, Crisp said.

“They are very influenced by social media and social media has been captured by antivaxxers,” he said. “They choose to believe this rather than the authorities, which is a reflection of what South Africans feel about authority right now.”

The country failed to meet its original target of inoculating about two-thirds of adults by the end of 2021, as well as its plan to consistently administer about 300,000 vaccines a day.