Expiry of Covid-19 vaccines a concern

CONCERNS related to the safety and effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines have surfaced following news that the World Health Organization (WHO) and its Covid-19 vaccine partner, Gavi, have no immediate plans to buy additional vaccines made by Aspen Pharmacare.

This comes after the company’s expectations of high demand in Africa did not materialise. Its CEO warned that it would be forced to repurpose about half of its vaccine production capacity if orders did not pick up.

While demand is low, safety concerns remain at the forefront. However, experts and the National Department of Health assured people that the vaccines are safe.

Professor Saloshni Naidoo of the Discipline of Public Health Medicine at the University of Kwazulu-natal said the general vaccine expiry timeframe was two years; however, due to there not being much research on Covid-19, caution was being taken.

“The vaccine can be used for up to six months and some companies are calling for it to be extended so manufacturers can have stability. It is important to note that the vaccine doesn’t stop working after expiring but the longer it stays on the shelf the more the potency decreases. You still have a degree of immunity/response to the virus,” said Naidoo.

She said more trials and studies on the efficacy of post-expiry vaccines were needed.

Foster Mohale, director of media relations at the National Health Department, said the low uptake of vaccines continued to be a problem.

He said other countries had to destroy vaccines that were not being administered.

“If the situation changes and the uptake increases then we can consider purchasing more vaccines from places like Aspen, etc. The whole world has to destroy vaccines. We bought these when the rate of transmission was high in the second and third waves. No one knew the situation and variants would change,” said Mohale.

“In a crisis you buy without knowing about the future, and you look at the population of the country. The current vaccine is for all waves and is effective for any variant so there is no need to change it now. We administer the batches first received, then move on to the next so for now we have enough, and the current demand will determine future purchase.”

Aspen, Gavi and WHO did not comment at the time of going to print.