By Victoria Kayeye

Various medical supplies and products at Zambia Medicines and Medical Supplies Agency (ZAMMSA) have expired due to over procurement while others are due to the change of treatment guidelines in Zambia.

Among the expired are essential drugs like Aminophylline, insulin, hydrogen peroxide, cloxacillin oral, eye drops and family planning pills microgynon.

This came to light when Minister of Health, Dr. Jonas Chanda visited ZAMMSA.

Dr. Chanda has expressed displeasure that medical supplies and products are going to waste when Hospitals do not have medicines and lab reagents.

He has warned that all the cartels that are sabotaging the government in the procurement system will be fished out.

Dr. Chanda has since directed management to submit to his office a comprehensive report on drugs that have expired and those that have been recalled and the amount involved by tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, ZAMMSA Operations Manager, Rachael Muyoma says the delay in disposing off the expired products was due to lack of funds.

South Africa will put on hold use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shot in its vaccination programme, after data showed it gave minimal protection against mild-to-moderate infection caused by the country’s dominant coronavirus variant.

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Sunday that the government would await advice from scientists on how best to proceed, after a trial showed the AstraZeneca vaccine did not significantly reduce the risk of mild or moderate COVID-19 from the 501Y.V2 variant that caused a second wave of infections starting late last year.

Prior to widespread circulation of the more contagious variant, the vaccine was showing efficacy of around 75%, researchers said.

In a later analysis based mostly on infections by the new variant, there was only a 22% lower risk of developing mild-to-moderate COVID-19 versus those given a placebo. Although researchers said the figure was not statistically significant, due to trial design, it is well below the benchmark of at least 50% regulators have set for vaccines to be considered effective against the virus.

The study did not assess whether the vaccine helped prevent severe COVID-19 because it involved mostly relatively young adults not considered to be at high risk for serious illness.

AstraZeneca said on Saturday that it believed its vaccine could protect against severe disease and that it had already started adapting it against the 501Y.V2 variant.

Still, professor Shabir Madhi, lead investigator on the AstraZeneca trial in South Africa, said data on the vaccine were a reality check and that it was time to “recalibrate our expectations of COVID-19 vaccines”.

it was time to “recalibrate our expectations of COVID-19 vaccines”.

South Africa hopes to vaccinate 40 million people, or two-thirds of the population, to achieve some level of herd immunity but has yet to administer a single shot.

It had hoped to roll out the AstraZeneca vaccine to healthcare workers soon after on Monday receiving 1 million doses produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII).

Instead, it will offer health workers vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer/BioNTech in the coming weeks.

“What does that mean for our vaccination programme which we said will start in February? The answer is it will proceed,” Mkhize told an online news briefing. “From next week for the next four weeks we expect that there will be J&J vaccines, there will be Pfizer vaccines.”

NEW APPROACH

Professor Salim Abdool Karim, an epidemiologist advising the government, said there needed to be a new approach to immunisations, given uncertainty about how effective current vaccines would be against the 501Y.V2 variant.

First a vaccine should be used in a targeted group to assess hospitalisation rates, and then if it proves effective in reducing hospitalisations it could feature in a wide-scale rollout, he said.

If it was not effective in reducing hospitalisations, individuals who had received it should be offered another effective vaccine, either a booster based on the variant or another vaccine, Abdool Karim added.

It was probable that South Africa would experience a third wave of infections when winter starts in around four months’ time, Madhi said.

He added that it would be “somewhat reckless” to discard the 1 million AstraZeneca doses the country had received when there was still a chance they could protect against severe COVID-19.

Anban Pillay, health ministry deputy director-general, said the expiry date on the AstraZeneca doses was in April, but the government was speaking to the SII to seek an extension or exchange.

Madhi said South Africa might want to reframe its target group for vaccination. “It really needs to be centred around the prevention of severe disease and death from what will likely be a resurgence sometime soon.”

Reporting by Alexander Winning and Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Alexander Smith and Bill Berkrot

Source: Reuters

Zambia has in the last 24 hours recorded 1,206 new positive cases of Covid-19 out of 10,063 tests conducted. This brings the cumulative number of confirmed Covid-19 cases to 62,633 since the pandemic broke out in Zambia in March last year.

Minister of Health Jonas Chanda explained that 14 new deaths were also reported in the last 24 hours bringing the cumulative number of Covid-19 related deaths to 853.

In a statement issued in Lusaka yesterday, Dr. Chanda added that 1,425 patients have been discharged from both home management and Covid-19 isolation facilities. The number of people who have recovered from Covid-19 now stands at 54,835.

He said currently, active cases are 6,945, of which 6,531 are under community management and 414 still admitted to Covid-19 isolation facilities with 266 on oxygen therapy.

The minister further noted that 56 Covid-19 patients are in critical condition.

Meanwhile, Education authorities in Chilanga district have urged school head teachers to follow the health guidelines whenever a teacher or pupil tests positive to Covid-19 in order to prevent the transmission of the disease in learning institutions.

Chilanga District Education Board Secretary (DEBS) Benjamin Chisulo said the schools will not close as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic unless the situation gets out of hand.

Fr. Chisulo told the ZANIS in an interview following a reported case of the pandemic at Makeni GRZ school that individuals who test positive will be isolated in-line with the health guidelines.

He said schools cannot close just because of isolated cases of the pandemic.

He explained that all the contacts are traced and tested so that those found positive are isolated and treated.

Fr. Chisulo stated that authorities in the district are vigilant adding that there are policy guidelines that should be followed in addressing such matters.

“We should not alarm the situation as teachers just like other people, are not immune to the disease,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chilanga District Commissioner Richard Ndazye has assured parents in the area that their children are safe as all the health procedures are being followed.

Mr. Ndazye said the government is following the matter with interest and will ensure that all the necessary procedures are adhered to.

“We are aware of the effects of Covid-19 and how our parents may react, but they should not panic as everything has been put in place to guarantee their safety,” he said.

He noted that teachers, just like everyone else, are at risk of contracting the disease.

And Makeni GRZ school head teacher Julius Chibeka said the teacher in question tested positive before the reopening of schools and she was immediately quarantined.

Mr. Chibeka said that the affected teacher’s class has since been taken up by other teachers to ensure that pupils do not lose out.

“As per procedure, whenever teachers are absent, we request other teachers to take up their classes until they return. So, the pupils are still learning,” he said.