The World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Saturday said Africa has administered just over 25 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines so far or 1.5 percent of the doses given worldwide, reported CGTN Africa.
During a meeting of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union on access to vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic for the African continent, Tedros said the condition of vaccine distribution across Africa is tragic.
“In the past two weeks, we are seeing some progress … with a good number of countries committing to share and equitable distribution of vaccines, but vaccine nationalism still holds us back,” the WHO head said.
He said the global health body is working to attain immediate solutions for the equitable distribution of vaccine doses.
“At the same time, we cannot let down our guard. What is happening now in many other parts of the world can also happen in Africa,” Tedros said.
He added that the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated that Africa cannot rely solely on imports of vaccines from the rest of the world.
“We must build that capacity, not only for COVID-19 vaccines but for other vaccines and medical products. But at the same time we have to focus on the immediate solution of vaccine sharing, as I said earlier, “Tedros added.
According to WHO figures, there are over 4.7 million confirmed COVID-19 cases on the African continent including 126,000 deaths and more than 4.2 million recoveries.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, WHO Africa Director Matshidiso Moeti said COVID-19 vaccine shipments to African countries have slowed down in May due to the dependency on India as one of the key vaccine manufacturers globally. India is currently witnessing a devastating surge of cases and has stopped the export of vaccines to meet domestic demand.
The African continent was expecting 66 million COVID-19 vaccine doses through the COVAX facility from February to May, but instead, it has received only 18.2 million doses so far.
