The African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) on Thursday announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Pfizer for access to Paxlovid, the company’s antiviral pill to treat COVID-19, reported Reuters.
According to data collected from a study last November, the antiviral medication was found nearly 90 percent effective in preventing hospitalisations and deaths compared with a placebo, in adults at high risk of severe illness.
During a press briefing on Thursday, Dr. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, acting director of Africa CDC, said the memorandum will give African nations access to the pill at cost.
“We have signed the MOU with Pfizer and we are going to be able to make that particular treatment available to African countries,” said Dr. Ouma.
The Africa CDC director said how these pills will be distributed among countries is yet to be decided.
Back in March, the Africa CDC, which is the specialized health agency of the 55-member African Union, had said that the MOU was ready, but needed to be cleared by its legal office.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that deaths from COVID-19 in the African countries are expected to fall by nearly 94 percent in 2022 as compared with last year.
As of the end of May, Africa had reported more than 11.8 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 250,000 deaths since the pandemic began, according to data from the WHO Africa’s office.
Notably, during the Covid-19 pandemic period, some rich countries resorted to hoarding COVID-19 vaccine doses, and due to that African countries faced a lot of difficulty in controlling the spread of the virus.
Although African countries struggled early in the pandemic to secure COVID-19 vaccines as rich countries hoarded available doses, many are well-supplied with the vaccine shots now, but are having trouble getting them due to issues of hesitancy and logistic issues.
