COVID-19: US-UK vaccine commitment will be greeted positively in Africa - but doses need to be accessed fast
A third wave is now taking root in Africa with an increase of infections continent-wide of 26% over the past week.
Friday 11 June 2021 15:25, UK
As the world grapples with new variants, the international community's best defence against COVID has been concentrated in those countries with the greatest financial resources.
The United Kingdom and the United States have offered the majority of their citizens at least one dose with mass vaccination programmes now actively planning to inoculate children.
The British health secretary, Matt Hancock, said people as young as 12 could receive jabs later this summer.
The reality in Africa could not be any more different.
A third wave is now taking root with an increase of infections continent-wide of 26% over the past week.
In South Africa, COVID-19 cases have more than doubled in the last 24 hours while Uganda has recorded a 131% week-on-week rise in infections.
The UN-backed COVAX vaccination facility, which was set up to provide cost-free inoculations to poorer nations, has delivered just a fraction of the doses needed to protect the public.
Of 66 million doses promised to COVAX by the end of June, only 20 million have been delivered, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
In large part, this is a problem of manufacturing capacity.
African nations were reliant on the Serum Institute of India to provide AstraZeneca vaccines but the institute's supplies were redirected after the outbreak of the so-called 'Delta variant' in India this spring.
Five countries in Africa have now exhausted their COVAX supplies and another five are running vaccination programmes with jabs donated by fellow African countries.
Some 18 months after the virus arrived, Africa's COVID-19 protection plan is anything but effective.
In fact, Africa only accounts for 1% of the 2.1 billion doses administered internationally.
The UK government's donation of 100 million doses - along with a commitment from the US to provide 500 million Pfizer jabs - will be greeted positively in African capitals.
But health officials will need to access these vaccinations quickly if they are going to save the lives of their citizens.
Organisations like the WHO and UNICEF have been calling on wealthier nations to donate vaccines from their own domestic stocks to bridge the gap before new manufacturing capacity is found towards the end of the year.
Of the 100 million doses the UK says it will be providing, it says only five million will be provided to poorer countries by the end of the September.
Yet the WHO is looking for 225 million jabs to meet its target of vaccinating 10% of the population on the continent.
Completing the two-dose regime of the AstraZeneca vaccine has created great anxiety in Africa.
Upon receipt of the first dose, health officials were encouraged to distribute it as widely as possible, yet they have struggled to get their hands on the second jab.
Millions of key health workers and vulnerable people face the prospect of not completing the coronavirus vaccine regime.
France was the first country to donate from its own domestic supply and it has now sent one million doses to eight African nations.
Lesotho was one of those nations which took possession, with 36,000 doses arriving this week.
The health minister, Semano Sekatle, said he had been "frustrated by the delays".
"We received our first batch in March… it was a huge problem that frightened us but luckily we managed to get this second batch."