Oliver Meth
International development partners have launched a new initiative aimed at resolving the COVID-19 vaccine bottleneck across Africa.
Although COVID-19 vaccine supplies to Africa have risen significantly, the continent is struggling to expand rollout, with only 11 percent of the population fully vaccinated.
According to the International Federation of Red Cross, the vaccination rate needs to increase six times if the continent is to meet the 70 percent target set for the middle of this year.
To date, Africa has received more than 587 million vaccine doses, 58 percent through the COVAX Facility, 36 percent from bilateral deals and 6 percent through Africa Vaccines Acquisition Trust (AVAT) of the African Union.
In January this year, 96 million doses were shipped to Africa, which is more than double that of six months ago. Increasing deliveries have eased shortages and turned the spotlight on the need for countries to rapidly ramp up vaccine rollout.
“The world has finally heard our calls. Africa is now accessing the vaccines it has demanded for far too long. This is a dose of hope for this year,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
While Moeti applauded the vaccines acquisition, she added that “a dependable pipeline must go hand in hand with operational funding to move doses out of depots and into people’s arms.”
The agency says it is working with countries to urgently fix operational challenges including supporting health workers to speed up vaccine delivery, save lives and beat back the pandemic.
Currently 6 million people are vaccinated on average every week in Africa, and this number needs to increase to 36 million to reach the 70 percent target agreed globally.
Although Mauritius and Seychelles have already met the 70 percent target and seven African countries have vaccinated 40 percent of their population, vaccination rates on the continent remain low.
Twenty-one countries have fully vaccinated less than 10 percent of their populations, while 16 have vaccinated less than 5 percent and three have fully vaccinated less than 2 percent.
The slow uptake in COVID-19 vaccines in Africa requires global partners and countries to reset their programmes, scale up efforts to overcome hurdles, improve coordination and speed up vaccination drives – to ensure that vaccines are administered quickly upon arrival to avoid expired vaccines.
The continent is now emerging from its fourth pandemic wave driven by the Omicron variant.
Cases have declined for the third straight week. Over the past week, cases dropped by 15 per cent compared with the week before, while deaths fell slightly by 5 per cent.
Africa has recorded 10.8 million cases and over 239, 000 deaths cumulatively.
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