The World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday that the African continent needs more than 470 million vaccines by the end of this year to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, in the face of a 150 million dose cut from the COVAX Initiative, which aims to ensure global access to vaccines.
The African continent faces a shortfall of nearly 500 million doses against its overall goal of vaccinating a total of 40% of its population against Covid-19 by the end of 2021. The COVAX consortium was, just this year, forced to cut off some 150 million doses to the continent due to red tape.
According to the World Health Organization, with millions of doses cut, 470 million doses are now expected to be delivered to the African continent this year, which will be enough to vaccinate only 17% of the population.
Only 2% of the nearly six billion doses distributed globally were administered in Africa. The European Union and the United Kingdom have vaccinated more than 60% of their population.
According to Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s regional director for Africa, export bans and vaccine hoarding hinder the supply of the immunizers to Africa. And as long as rich countries lock COVAX out of the market, Africa will miss its vaccination targets.
This shortfall comes at a time when Africa has just passed a cumulative total of eight million cases of infection with the disease.
