J&J’s ‘vaccine colonialism contract slammed, as Africans remain unvaccinated

A storm of criticism has exploded after the Health Justice Initiative (HJI) broke the news of the government’s alleged waiver on the export restriction on vaccine doses sending millions of doses to Europe.

Yesterday, the founder and director of the Health Justice Initiative, Fatima Hassan, tweeted the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine contract with South Africa, as reviewed by New York Times, required South Africa to waive its right to impose export restrictions on vaccine doses.

A recent article by the New York Times found that J&J allegedly shipped at least 32 million doses of vaccines to Europe in recent months.

Hassan said HJI has submitted an access to an information request on the “secret” contract. “

We are not only in the middle of a pandemic but it is also the public interest.

We have a disaster declared but the contract is subject to a nondisclosure agreement because J&J and Pfizer said
to the government if they don’t agree to nondisclosure, we won’t give you vaccines,” she said.

Hassan added J&J decided to prioritise the European market and parts of North America for months now, while waiting for supplies and going through the third wave.

“The issue is that J&J forced the hand of the South African government,” Hassan said.

She said the fact that SA can also only rely on Aspen for vaccines was dangerous.

“The worse problem is the contract is secret,” she said. Prof Alex van den Heever, chair of social security systems
administration and management studies at the Wits School of Governance, said it was shocking and totally unacceptable.

“Aspen has been saying one thing and doing another. They appear to renege on their agreements with South Africa and favour Europe,” Van den Heever said.

He said the export of J&J vaccines from South Africa to Europe makes no sense given that Aspen and J&J have not kept to their supply agreements to SA.

“A full explanation of what has gone on here is needed as it appears that profits are being put before lives in South Africa. Aspen especially needs to come clean on what it is doing and why,” Van den Heever said.

He said it was also unclear why the South African government allowed this to happen.

Prof Ian Sanne, a member of the Covid ministerial advisory committee, said it was morally indispensable to supply countries that have got an access amount of vaccines available when South Africa and its neighbouring countries were struggling to get a substantial supply of vaccines.

“There is an ethical question that needs to be asked as to why a subcontinent manufacturing facility is exporting vaccines to countries that have an oversupply of vaccines,” said Sanne.

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Public health lawyer Safura Abdool-Karim said the Covid vaccine inequalities have been substantial.

“We have seen wealthy countries such as Europe that have been able to vaccinate half of their population, while less than 2% of low- and middle-income country citizens remain vaccinated,” Abdool-Karim said.

She said it’s not a problem they prevented South Africa from imposing any restrictions on exporting vaccines.

“What is however incredibly troubling about the J&J contract was that they could have gone to the rest of the continent or other lower-income countries that desperately need vaccines,” Abdool-Karim said.

National department of health spokesperson Popo Maja said he preferred J&J to comment on the export of the vaccine rather than the department.

– marizkac@citizen.co.za