[ad_1]
After a slow start, Africa has shifted into high gear in purchasing coronavirus vaccines, securing hundreds of millions of shots through pooling initiatives amid efforts to gain traction in the race global inoculation.
So far, only a small handful of African countries have started vaccinating their populations against Covid-19, starting with Seychelles and more recently Mauritius.
Wealthier countries have been accused of buying excess doses in bulk directly from manufacturers – limiting supply and getting better deals than governments with less buying clout.
Most African countries rely on the World Health Organization (WHO) and the African Union (AU) to support at least part of their innoculation campaigns by providing vaccines and helping to finance their deployment. .
The AU announced Thursday that it had obtained 400 million doses of Covid-19 injections for its members, in addition to the 270 million doses presented earlier this month.
The WHO-backed Covax sharing facility is reportedly on track to deliver 600 million vaccines to the continent by the end of 2021.
Some African countries have also started negotiating directly with suppliers.
Algeria this month signed a “mutual deal” with a Russian laboratory to purchase the controversial Sputnik-V vaccine, while Senegal is in talks to acquire doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine.
South Africa, the continent’s worst-hit country, is awaiting a first batch of 1.5 million Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccines on February 1.
Africa’s most industrialized economy will also receive nine million vaccines from Johnson & Johnson, if its vaccine is approved, and is negotiating with other undisclosed manufacturers.
‘Rise in power’
At the Virtual World Economic Forum 2021 this week, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa criticized “vaccine nationalism”, accusing rich countries of stockpiling doses at the expense of their poorer counterparts.
It is estimated that Africa will need 1.5 billion vaccines to immunize 60 percent of its 1.3 billion people – a potential threshold for herd immunity against Covid.
But the WHO warned on Thursday that Covax and the AU combined would only be able to deliver blows to about a third of the continent this year.
“Reaching 30-35% (of the African population) could be a realistic assumption by the end of 2021,” WHO’s immunization coordinator for Africa, Richard Mihigo, said during a briefing. virtual press.
Africa should receive its first vaccines against Covax before mid-February, he added, without specifying which countries would be the first.
“By March, we will definitely see most countries start vaccinating,” Mihigo predicted.
“It’s a slow start, but we expect that in the coming months things will pick up speed.”
While the AU says it has obtained 670 million doses, delivery is expected to be slower, with just 50 million vaccines promised so far between April and June.
The bulk of these pooled provisions will relate to Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccines, followed by a few million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.
New variants
Time is counted. Several African countries are struggling to contain a second wave of the virus that has proven to be more virulent than the first, putting pressure on tired staff and under-equipped hospitals.
To date, the continent has recorded nearly 3.5 million cases of coronavirus and 88,000 deaths, according to a tally established by AFP.
A Covid patient breathes oxygen in a special ward at Khayelitsha hospital near Cape Town. By RODGER BOSCH (AFP) These numbers remain relatively low compared to other regions, but the threat is growing.
WHO warned on Thursday that more than 175,000 new cases and 6,200 deaths had been reported in the past week alone, mostly in northern and southern Africa.
Recorded infections have increased by 50 percent in the past four weeks and the number of deaths has doubled.
Even more concerning is a variant of the coronavirus first identified in South Africa and which is now “fueling a record number of cases” across Africa, the WHO said.
Known as 501Y.V2, it is believed to be more contagious and has appeared in at least six African countries and 24 around the world.
“What keeps me awake at night right now is that it is most likely circulating in a number of African countries,” WHO director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti said in a statement.
Another variant of the virus first detected in Britain has also been reported in The Gambia and Senegal.
WHO is helping African countries build and strengthen the genomic surveillance capacities needed to track and respond to other potential variants.
Moeti called on governments to step up testing in the meantime and continue to apply social distancing measures.
“In addition to the new variants, the fatigue of the Covid-19 and the consequences of the end-of-year gatherings risk causing a perfect storm,” she urged.
“We need to stick to our guns and double down on tactics that we know work so well.”
sch-md / ri
Source link
