CAPE TOWN - The Department of Health told Parliament on Wednesday that it was faced with the dilemma of what to do with millions of doses of unused and still-to-be-delivered COVID-19 vaccines.
The department also revealed that the government stood to lose millions of rands as COVID-19 fatigue impacted the desire for booster shots.
COVID-19 infections in the country remained low and only half of the adult population was vaccinated.
But as the virus lurked, the health department said it was not budging from its target of vaccinating 70% of adults.
The department said the country had millions of vaccines in stock to get the job done and also owed the Covax facility R71 million for 10 million undelivered Pfizer doses.
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Deputy director general Nicholas Crisp said another 11.4 million doses of the J&J vaccine doses were also on the way.
“We have been looking at all plausible options to mitigate this delivery for some months now by delaying deliveries and for trying to find donations. nobody around the world is really buying vaccines at the moment so it’s very difficult to sell them elsewhere.”
According to the Health Department, more than 8 million Pfizer vaccines were in stock and set to expire between December 2022 and January 2023.
The 10 million J&J vaccines had a longer shelf life between June and September next year.
DEPT DENIES DESTROYING VACCINES
The Health Department vehemently denied destroying any expired or unused, COVID-19 vaccines.
It said it had never done so since the procurement of vaccines at the start of the pandemic.
But Crisp told Parliament that the shelf life of the stocks was regularly being tested.
“We have an ongoing review of the stability of the vaccines and that and those dates might still be pushed out on a rolling three-month basis.”
Crisp said the government could get out of commitments for large batches of vaccines it ordered, and which were on the way.
But no new orders had been placed since June 2021.
Crisp said reports of 1 million doses destroyed earlier this year were untrue.
“At the moment, nothing is going to be destroyed. We were able to use all the doses. So far, we have not destroyed any vaccines centrally.”
The department said orders were placed within a target of vaccinating 41 million people.
To date, only 23 million were vaccinated.
