Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, recovering in Germany since his hospitalization at the end of October, announced Sunday, December 20 on social networks that he had instructed his Prime Minister to convene “without delay” the Scientific Committee to monitor the evolution of the pandemic of coronavirus “to choose the appropriate anti-Covid-19 vaccine and launch the vaccination campaign from next January”.
A surprise announcement that puts pressure on the country’s health authorities, because even the official news agency, APS, underlines that the scientific committee “thus has a handful of days to initiate the vaccination process by taking the care of deciding the most delicate question, that inherent in the choice of the most appropriate vaccine ”.
However, for several weeks, the official discourse has focused on the “prudential” approach.
Which vaccine?
An approach reiterated by Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad on Sunday, who explained, a few hours before the presidential announcement, that Algeria will wait until the product is “qualified”, while affirming that “a whole logistics is in the process of to be studied ”.
“What vaccine could Algeria acquire to carry out President Tebboune’s order?” The answer is: none ”, reacted, in a forum, the Dr Yacine Terkmane, President of the Regional Council of the Order of Physicians of Blida. “Algeria has decided since last August to acquire a vaccine prequalified by the WHO within the framework of the Covax, a mechanism organized by the WHO, to guarantee the effectiveness, the safety, the availability, the best price and equity in the distribution of vaccines. No vaccine has so far been prequalified by WHO. ”
The same specialist doubts the logistical capacities, which would ultimately condition which vaccine Algeria will acquire: “The available logistics exclude the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna because of the conditions of storage at very low temperature. The other vaccines do not require very special means. The system which is being set up jointly by the Ministries of the Interior and of Health could, within a few weeks, be operational. ”
The Chinese option?
“If it’s a vaccine similar to the one we’re used to using, there’s no problem. We vaccinated 10,000 children in one week, ”the Minister of Health indicated during a meeting with the media.
Or, El Watan revealed, on December 6, that “the vaccination campaign could only take place at the best of times towards the end of the second quarter of 2021”, and that “in view of all the administrative, scientific and regulatory procedures, prior to the acquisition of this product, the source of which has not yet been revealed ”.
The same newspaper specifies that the choices closest to the Algerian approach would be “Chinese companies including two advances in research, namely Sinopharm and Sinovac which plan to increase the production capacities currently limited to around 400 million doses per year. towards the end of 2020 ”.
Without going into too many details, the Minister Delegate for the Pharmaceutical Industry, Lotfi Benbahmed, assured, in early December, that “Algeria has the capacity to produce the vaccine against the coronavirus”, without giving more details on the vaccine. .
Russia, which is in contact with the Algerian authorities concerning the issue of the Sputnik V vaccine, announced for its part that around fifty countries, particularly in Africa, were going to manufacture this vaccine.
Russia’s industrial capacities are less important than that of China, which specializes in mass production and at low cost in addition, assets which allow Beijing to deploy its “vaccine diplomacy”.
Free vaccine for all
In fact, in addition to the logistical constraints that weigh on the choice of vaccine, there is also the price to be paid. The Algerian Minister of Health declared on December 14 on public radio: “Medicine has always been free in Algeria, why would you want citizens to pay for a peril? The vaccine against Covid-19 will therefore necessarily be free for all categories of the population. ”
“Whichever vaccine is chosen, the market has shrunk a lot from our indecision because we have put some downtime saying we’re waiting for this organism or that other,” said Dr.r Mohamed Bekkat Berkani, President of the Order of Physicians and member of the scientific committee.
This Tuesday, December 22, during a meeting chaired by the Prime Minister, it was announced that the “scientific committee has already drawn up a short list of vaccine developer laboratories and that contracts are being finalized for the first deliveries ”.
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