New cases of covid-19 fell by 30% in Africa last week, but the continent continues to face vaccine supply problems, which will prevent it from meeting this year’s immunisation targets, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
“For the ninth week in a row, new cases have declined, with another sharp drop of 30 per cent in the last week. This decline is good news, but should not be a reason to let our guard down,” WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti told a virtual press conference.
This contraction coincided last week with the crossing of the eight million cases barrier in Africa, where many countries are experiencing a third wave of the disease, driven mainly by the delta variant, although it appears to be slowing down.
However, Moeti stressed, vaccination coverage remains “very low”, with only 50 million (3.6% of the continental population) fully vaccinated.
The Covax programme, with which WHO and other organisations want to bring covid-19 vaccines to developing countries, will not be able to deliver the 2 billion doses it had projected this year and will have only 1.4 billion available, which will impact Africa.
With the reduction, Covax must deliver 470 million doses to the African continent, which, according to the UN agency, will be “enough to vaccinate only 17% of the population, well below the target of 40%” set for 2021.
Export bans and vaccine stockpiles cause a vaccine supply bottleneck for Africa. As long as rich countries exclude Covax from the market, Africa will not meet its vaccination targets,” Moeti warned.
“It is time for vaccine producing countries to open their doors and help protect those who are most at risk,” he said.
In this regard, Moeti hopes that the UN General Assembly, to be held next week in New York, will address “inequality in the world, not just in Africa” as developing countries in other regions also face “challenges”.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Africa (CDC Africa), John Nkengasong, also spoke on this issue in another virtual press conference.
According to Nkengasong, “access to vaccines on the continent” should be “a central point of discussion” at the UN General Assembly. “The developed world is vaccinated. Africa is not,” he recalled.
To date, Africa has recorded just over eight million cases and nearly 205,000 deaths from covid-19.
