The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday said 48 African countries are still trailing behind to meet the 40 percent year-end vaccination target, reported CGTN Africa.
The continent continues to lag behind other regions in vaccination statistics due to vaccine supply constraints since the first vaccines were administered in December 2020.
“While 44 percent of the world’s population is fully vaccinated, in Africa this is still only 8 percent,” said Ghebreyesus.
The WHO chief said some countries were facing challenges rolling out vaccines and scaling up the pace. He noted that the global health body was working closely with those countries to overcome the issues.
Tedros also appealed to African countries to come together and support the formulation of an international treaty on pandemic preparedness, prevention, and response.
“The increased participation of Africa in multilateral discussions regionally and globally is essential for shaping global health security, and African health security,” he said.
The WHO chief said persistent inequity in access to vaccines, and the emergence of the Omicron variant, shows why it is crucial to invest in local production.
The statement comes at a time when the emergence of the Omicron variant has prompted countries to rollout booster doses to protect their people against the COVID-19.
Omicron was first identified last month in South Africa, the hardest-hit country by the pandemic in Africa. On Friday, South Africa reported 20,713 new COVID-19 cases from a sample size of 68,181 tests conducted over the past 24 hours, bringing the country’s total number of infections to 3,276,529. 35 new deaths were also reported that increased the total death toll related to the virus to 90,297.
Omicron has reportedly spread to 77 countries as of Wednesday, Dec. 16.
In related news, the South African government has decided to donate more than 2 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine to other African countries to speed up the continent’s COVID-19 vaccine drive.
