Towards Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine Wastage in Cameroon: Challenges and Way Forward

The coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has tremendously impacted both the small and large world economies. Schools and businesses were shut down and national borders closed, interrupting international trade and movement of people. This eventually led to huge economic losses and rendered many people jobless. Unlike in high-income countries, recovery in the post-pandemic period is yet to be fully actualized as many countries, especially from Africa that were hit the most by the pandemic continue to face other health and economic setbacks. The African continent is endemic to diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and HIV which already required funding before the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, the Cameroonian health authorities reported numerous confirmed cases. Vaccination continues to be an effective means to avoid further spread of the virus and minimize possible occurrences of other COVID-19 variants across the globe. Despite the efforts made towards COVID-19 vaccination, only 12% of Cameroonians were reported to have completed the COVID-19 vaccinations in the basic series. In the country, multiple resorts were used to attenuate the impact of the virus, including barrier measures, vaccines and even traditional therapies. The initial promotion of traditional remedies as control measures created a preference over vaccines due to misinformation from social media platforms, contributing to fear of vaccines, and consequently resulted in a high vaccine hesitancy (VH) reported at 56.9%. This VH coupled with cold chain management challenges resulted in vaccine wastage. Consequently, the target of vaccinating 15 million Cameroonians by December 2022 to reach the threshold vaccination coverage expected to confer immunity was not attained. Hence, it is important to reduce expenditures on extra doses of vaccines, maximize uptake through vaccination sensitization campaigns and increase access to avoid vaccine wastage. This will be instrumental in attaining herd immunity and contribute to the fight against new COVID-19 variants.