AFRICA might have to wait for years to access enough COVID-19 vaccines for its population until richer countries’ orders are met by vaccine producers.
GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, on Wednesday announced that it would provide COVID-19 vaccines to almost all countries in Africa under the framework of the COVAX facility that aims to facilitate low- and mid-income countries’ access to the COVID-19 vaccines.
However, the amounts indicated in the GAVI’s announcement are not sufficient to vaccinate even 5% of the population covered by the COVAX facility.
Of the Sub-Saharan countries in Africa, only Seychelles and Mauritius commenced mass-vaccination campaigns while Guinea is still testing Russian Sputnik V vaccines. Furthermore, Morocco, Algeria, and Egypt of North Africa also started mass-vaccination campaigns.
The number of COVID-19 related fatalities in Africa exceeded 93,000 while the number of cases is over 3.6 million.
Experts argue that at least 60% of Africa’s 1.3 billion people
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