By Asmau Ahmad
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has called on African countries to coordinate its COVID-19 travel rules and for a global discussion about testing and international travel.
“It’s time as a continent we have to harmonise testing for travel we have to have a more coordinated approach.
“The moment is right to really review that practice and have a global discussion,” virologist John Nkengasong of the Africa CDC said on Thursday.
The African continent has received around 750 million vaccine doses so far, but only 16 per cent of the population was fully vaccinated a long way from the 70 per cent target.
Nkengasong said that many countries are facing logistical issues with their vaccine rollout.
Nonetheless, the number of COVID-19 cases is sinking rapidly, down nearly 50 per cent week-on-week.
The Africa CDC was trying to coordinate a continent-wide approach to the pandemic.
So far, Africa has officially reported 11.3 million cases and 250,850 deaths from COVID-19.
However, experts assume the true figures to be substantially higher in a continent of 1.3 billion people.
