By Haruna Gimba
The World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Africa says nearly 50 percent of countries that are yet to commence COVID-19 vaccination are in the African continent.
WHO-AFRO disclosed this via its official Twitter handle @WHOAFRO.
“Nearly 50 percent of countries that have not begun COVID-19 vaccinations are in Africa. The only way out of the pandemic is to recover together.”
The global health agency noted that COVID-19 vaccines should be fairly distributed. It said while on the average, one in four people has received a COVID-19 vaccine in high-income countries, just one in 500 of all doses given globally have been administered in lower-income countries, including Africa.
Director-General of WHO, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, said vaccine equity remains a challenge, with the number of new COVID-19 cases nearly doubling over the past two months.
“Vaccine equity is the challenge of our time and we are failing,” Ghebreyesus said last Friday during his opening remarks on a summit on COVID-19 vaccine by senior UN officials.
He noted that while COVAX had distributed 40 million doses to 100 countries, saying it is nowhere near enough.
“WHO had expected to distribute 100 million doses by now. Some countries have received nothing, none have received enough, and some are not receiving second-round allocation on time. The problem is not getting vaccines out of COVAX. The problem is getting them in,” the WHO chief said.
African countries have so far received over 33.8 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from different sources, mainly the COVAX facility, and through bilateral agreements outside the COVAX facility, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa has reached 4,421,627 as of Sunday, the Africa CDC said.
The Africa CDC, the specialised healthcare agency of the African Union, said the death toll from the pandemic stood at 117,696, while 3,960,793 patients across the continent have recovered from the disease.
South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia and Egypt are among the African countries with the most cases in the continent, according to the Africa CDC.
South Africa has recorded 1,565,680 COVID-19 cases, the most among African countries, followed by Morocco at 505,447 and Tunisia at 283,976, it was noted.
