Africa secures 270m Covid-19 vaccine doses
A good provisional 270 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been secured by the African Union (AU) for distribution over the continent.
Each of the doses will be utilized this season, promises current AU head South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
This is on top of 600 million doses already promised but continues to be insufficient to vaccinate the whole region.
There are fears that poorer countries globally will wait considerably longer than richer nations to be inoculated.
Although infection numbers and death costs are comparatively lower across almost all of Africa, conditions are spiking again in a few areas.
A new variant of Covid-19 in South Africa is leading to particular alarm and accocunts for most of the new cases.
"As a result of our own efforts we have so significantly secured a commitment of a provisional sum of 270 million vaccines from three key suppliers: Pfizer, AstraZeneca (through Serum Institute of India) and Johnson & Johnson," President Ramaphosa said about Wednesday.
At least 50 million of the dosages will be available "for the crucial amount of April to June 2021," he said.
In addition, the spot is expecting around 600 million dosages from the global Covax work which aims to supply vaccines to lower-income countries.
But officials are still waiting for particulars and so are now "happy we have solution solutions," Nicaise Ndembi, senior science adviser for the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the AP news agency.
Mr Ramaphosa said officials come to mind that the dosages from the Covax effort released in the initial half of 2021 is only going to be adequate to inoculate healthcare workers. With a population of just one 1.3 billion people and each person requiring two vaccine jabs, Africa would want around 2.6 billion doses to eventually vaccinate everyone.
"These endeavours try to dietary supplement the Covax work, also to ensure that as much dosages of vaccine as possible become obtainable throughout Africa as quickly as possible," he explained.
Africa has recorded a lot more than 3 million conditions of Covid-19 and nearly 75,000 deaths. By contrast, the US has reported near 23 million attacks and more than 383,000 fatalities.
There has been a global rush to buy vaccines, with richer countries accused of shopping for up almost all of the supply.
