African CDC says nations must act quickly to prepare for Covid vaccines

African governments must take urgent action to prepare for the distribution of coronavirus vaccines, the continent’s health watchdog said on Thursday, after the African Union announced it had secured 270 million dollars. doses.

“We cannot wait. This is not a polio or measles vaccination. We have to do it quickly. Our economies are shrinking, our population is dying,” John Nkengasong, director of the African Centers for Control and Prevention diseases (Africa CDC), said at a press conference.

“There is absolutely no reason why the accelerated preparations should not happen,” he added.

The African Union (AU) deal announced Wednesday is aimed at countries unable to finance their own vaccination campaigns.

Governments will be able to enter into financing agreements through the African Import-Export Bank that could allow installments over a five-year period.

The doses – which will be provided by Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson – will complement vaccines secured through Covax, the globally consolidated vaccine procurement and distribution program.

At least 50 million doses secured under the AU deal are expected to be available from April to June.

But Nkengasong said member states need to act quickly to organize storage sites in major cities, train health workers, secure supplies like needles and create effective systems to record who has received doses.

He said governments could start ordering vaccines through an AU platform in the coming days.

Africa has recorded around 3.1 million cases of Covid-19, or 3.5% of the global total, and around 75,000 deaths, or 2.4% of the global total, according to data from the African CDC.

But there has been an average weekly increase in cases of 18 percent over the past month, with significant increases in southern and western Africa in particular.

About 30,000 new cases are recorded every day in Africa, up from 18,000 in the continent’s first wave last year, Nkengasong said.

New strains

New strains of the virus, including one called 501Y.V2, which has emerged in South Africa, are potentially fueling the spread.

World Health Organization Africa director Matshidiso Moeti said “being faced with new variants of the virus is not surprising, but some of these changes are cause for concern.”

The 501Y.V2 variant, which recent studies have indicated may be more transmissible, has also been detected in Botswana, The Gambia and Zambia.

“And frankly, we think it could have a presence in more countries than that,” Moeti said during an online press briefing Thursday.

Twelve laboratories collaborating across the continent have already sequenced 5,000 samples of the virus, an important undertaking for detecting potential new strains, as well as the dangerousness and speed of their spread.

Another variant has been detected in Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa with 200 million inhabitants.

But more research is needed to “determine if this is in association with changes in circulation or the death rate of the virus,” said Chikwe Ihekweazu, head of the Nigerian Center for Disease Control.

The African CDC has set a goal of vaccinating 60% of Africans against Covid-19 in 2021 and 2022.