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- Speaking to SAfm on Tuesday, the government’s scientific adviser, Professor Salim Abdool Karim, told Stephen Grootes that he feels he has “let our country down.”
- He explained that this was because South Africa should have joined the vaccine race in July.
- Abdool Karim said there was an opportunity to create infrastructure and development capacity to make a vaccine in South Africa, which was lost.
Professor Salim Abdool Karim, chairman of the Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) and the government’s top scientific adviser, says he believes he “let our country down” in the race for a Covid-19 vaccine.
Speaking to Stephen Grootes of SAFM on Tuesday, Karim sounded defeated when he confessed to his own failures and said they should have joined the race in July establishing a vaccine manufacturing capacity in South Africa.
“The biggest flaw was my own failure; I feel like I disappointed my country by not taking up the discussion I had with [former interim executive director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases] Lynn Morris in June, “Abdool Karim told Grootes.
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He explained that he and Morris discussed making “chicken coronavirus vaccines” in South Africa, which he said was a good idea, but not viable.
“Even if it makes the vaccine, we don’t really have a facility to make it; we don’t really have a human facility to make vaccines in this country,” Abdool Karim said.
Looking back, he added: “I think we should have joined the race at that stage in July or so.”
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He said that while South Africa probably would not have had a vaccine by now, it would have been an opportunity to create the infrastructure, research and development capacity to make vaccines.
“Even if it hadn’t helped us in the epidemic, it was going to be an essential part of what we have to do in the next one.
“I feel like I let the team down a little bit. I should have been more forceful and should have raised money and helped them set it up and do it. I didn’t do it at the time, I think because of the bandwidth of trying to do too many other things, but I think it was a lesson for all of us, “said Abdool Karim.
