Sixteen African countries have shown interest in securing COVID-19 vaccines under an African Union (AU) plan, and allocations could be announced in the next 3 weeks, the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday, February 4.
While many rich nations have already begun mass vaccination drives, only a few African countries have started vaccination, and the 55-member African Union hopes to see 60% of the continent’s 1.3 billion people immunized in the next 3 years.
The AU has so far secured around 670 million doses for its member states.
Africa CDC Director John Nkengasong said the 16 countries had asked for a total of a total 114 million doses under the AU’s Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT), which began work in mid-January.
“Our hope is that in the next 2 to 3 weeks, they should be having their vaccines,” he told a virtual news conference.
Africa is also due to receive about 600 million vaccine doses this year via the COVAX facility, co-led by the World Health Organization.
At a later briefing, WHO Africa director Matshidiso Moeti said nearly 90 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine could start arriving on the continent later this month.
“These doses would help countries reach 3% of their populations in the first half of 2021, targeting the most at-risk groups, especially front-line health workers,” she said.
Moeti said some 320,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had been allocated to Cabo Verde, Rwanda, South Africa and Tunisia, and deliveries were expected this month.
The COVAX facility aims to help secure vaccines for 20% of Africans, which will mean about 600 million doses, Moeti said.
Africa has so far reported 3.5 million coronavirus infections and 88,000 deaths, according to a Reuters tally. – Rappler.com
There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.