MBAO, SENEGAL (AFP) – While people around the world wait impatiently to be vaccinated against Covid-19, an inoculation site in Senegal was empty on a recent day – a sign of the ambivalence nationwide.
Though jabs are free and available without appointment at the Mbao health post, outside the capital Dakar, there were no takers, leaving nurses to chat to pass the time.
Shots also did not appear to be in high demand at other Senegalese health centres visited by Agence France-Presse.
“People are in no rush to get vaccinated,” one health worker in Mbao said on condition of anonymity because she was not authorised to speak to journalists. “A woman told me she doesn’t trust it because it’s free. She’s waiting for it to be sold in pharmacies to buy it.”
The reticence in the West African nation is multi-layered.
Many Senegalese have had doubts about the seriousness of Covid-19 from the start, and widespread scepticism about vaccines only grew with concerns over the AstraZeneca jab’s possible link to rare blood clots.
The shot by the British-Swedish firm is one of two available in Senegal.
Vaccination officials in the religious city of Touba were quoted in local media saying that after a good start, supplies of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine and AstraZeneca jab were now languishing.
They warned against the risk of losing a portion of the 7,000 remaining doses of AstraZeneca out of 8,000 delivered since they could expire.
