Activists launch bid for details of vaccine contracts

The Health Justice Initiative (HJI) has taken legal action to try to compel the government to disclose details of the contracts it has signed with coronavirus vaccine manufacturers.

The HJI is a civil society organisation campaigning for fairer access to Covid-19 shots.

The department of health is known to have ordered vaccines from the Serum Institute of India, which manufactures AstraZeneca’s shot; Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Pfizer/BioNTech and the international vaccine sharing mechanism, Covax.

But the details of what it agreed to pay and most of the conditions attached to these deals, such as constraints on sharing or selling the jabs, or penalties for late deliveries, have not been made public.

It is public knowledge, however, that vaccine manufacturers have required the government to establish an indemnity fund, freeing them of liability from potential harm caused by their shots.

After failing to get a response from the department to its

request for information in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act, submitted in July 2021, HJI has launched legal proceedings in the high court in Pretoria seeking disclosure of all Covid-19 vaccine contracts, and related agreements with relevant companies.

The department of health has previously said it is bound by nondisclosure agreements that prohibit it from sharing details of the agreements it has signed with vaccine manufacturers.

“Nondisclosure agreements in a pandemic fuel misinformation and mistrust, and to some extent fuel vaccine hesitancy. We have a health department negotiating things in a very unclear, opaque way.

“We really need to get to a point in our democracy where we have open procurement,” said HJI founder Fatima Hassan.

In its notice of motion, filed last week, HJI asked the high court to direct health minister Joe Phaahla and the department’s information officer to provide copies of all contracts, memoranda of understanding, agreements and meeting notes and minutes with J&J and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals; local pharmaceutical manufacturer Aspen Pharmacare, which is contracted by J&J to manufacture its jab; the Serum Institute of India, which initially supplied SA with Astra Zeneca’s shot, and its local representative Cipla; Pfizer; the AU Vaccine Access Task Team; the global vaccine sharing mechanism Covax; the Solidarity Fund; Chinese manufacturer Sinovac, and any other vaccine manufacturers or licensees with which it has made agreements.

HJI’s lawyers have asked the court to compel the minister and the department’s information officer to join the companies and other relevant parties to the legal proceedings, because the HJI has been unable to determine who they are.

Details of the contracts that Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers have struck with other governments are scant, but there is growing pressure on them to be more transparent, said Hassan.

“Efforts are under way by other groups. In some countries they have obtained redacted or leaked contracts, and Colombian courts have ordered disclosure,” she said.

Department of health spokesperson Foster Mohale said the department’s legal unit is studying the papers and will respond through the appropriate legal channels.

IT IS PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE THAT MANUFACTURERS HAVE REQUIRED THE GOVERNMENT TO ESTABLISH AN INDEMNITY FUND