Scarcity of syringes could paralyze vaccination progress: WHO official
African health officials and the UN are warning of a looming shortage of up to 2 billion syringes for mainly low- and middle-income countries around the world as the supply of COVID-19 doses rises, and routine vaccinations could be affected, too, according to The Associated Pres.
The UN children’s agency said the shortfall would affect up to 2.2 billion auto-disposable syringes that lock automatically to prevent them from being used again.
“We are not anticipating a significant supply shortage of the more standard syringes used in high-income countries,” the agency said in a statement.
The threatened shortage comes as the flow of COVID-19 vaccine doses increases after months of delays to the African continent, the world’s least protected region with less than 6% of its population of 1.3 billion people fully vaccinated.
“The scarcity of syringes could paralyze progress,” said the World Health Organization’s Africa director, Matshidiso Moeti. Already, some African countries including South Africa, Kenya and Rwanda have seen delays in receiving syringes, the WHO said.
Routine childhood vaccinations “are going to be impacted,” said Sibusiso Hlatjwako of the health organization PATH, which forecasts that the problem could persist “way into 2022.”
PATH looked at data from manufacturers and said more than 100 countries around the world use the auto-disposable syringes affected.
Overall, the modeling “shows a sizeable gap now,” he said.
The syringe shortage is already complicating COVID-19 vaccination efforts in Rwanda, which has been receiving COVID-19 vaccines with a “very short shelf life” of sometimes a month or two before expiration dates, Sabin Nsanzimana with the Rwanda Biomedical Center said.
“You have to get these syringes in a short timeline,” he said, “otherwise you have vaccines expiring in your hands.”
Health officials said another complication is that the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19, used widely across Africa, requires a new and different syringe. The African continent has few syringe manufacturers and none that make the Pfizer one, the WHO said.
COVID-19 vaccine donations to African countries are now surpassing syringe availability, and countries in some cases are having to source syringes separately, said WHO vaccination official Phionah Atuhebwe.
“Without a plan, we should be in big trouble.”
African health officials say the African continent is seeing a downward trend in new COVID-19 cases and deaths over the past month, but Moeti warned that another increase could come around the approaching holiday season.
The African continent has had more than 8.4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, including more than 218,000 deaths.