COVAX starts to deliver first doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Africa

The UN-led initiative aiming to supply the poorest countries with COVID-19 vaccinations has announced that it will send as many as 90 million doses in February.

African countries will receive vaccines developed by AstraZeneca/Oxford which will be sufficient to vaccinate about 3% of the continent’s population, in particular those such as health workers, elderly people, and individuals with chronic diseases. Within the framework of the COVAX mechanism, about 20% of the African population should be vaccinated by the end of 2021 which will require 600 million doses to be delivered to the continent.

According to World Health Organization (WHO), a total of 670 million doses have been secured for African countries with COVAX to distribute these throughout 2021 and 2022. In addition, the WHO’s Emergency Use listing has sent a batch of 320,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines to four African countries – Cabo Verde, Rwanda, South Africa, and Tunisia, nations who possess the infrastructure needed to store the medication at minus 70 degrees Celsius.

There are some African countries that have already received vaccines. The Republic of South Africa obtained one million doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and produced by the Indian Serum Institute at the beginning of February and an additional half a million will arrive by the end of February. However, the authorities have decided to place a temporary halt to the immunization process due to uncertainty around the recent COVID-19 mutation discovered in RSA with studies showing that the vaccination does not provide satisfactory results against the new strain. This is why the government has decided to focus on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as clinical trials have proved that this is effective against the South African variant. The authorities want to distribute 100,000 doses of the vaccine to ascertain that it works before the immunization of larger numbers of people.

South Africa has secured a total of 20 million doses for 2021, some of which will come via the COVAX scheme and some through an African Union programme. The government is also planning to buy another 9 million doses from Johnson & Johnson. Thus, the country is in a fairly privileged position compared to other African states although it has also recorded the highest number of cases on the continent, being home to over a third of all COVID cases.

As of the beginning of February, Africa was far behind other continents in terms of access to vaccinations. While vaccinations have begun in 68 states worldwide, only four African countries are amongst these. The first African country to begin immunization was Seychelles. Using the Chinese Sinopham vaccine, the authorities plan to vaccinate 70% of the adult population. Mauritius started to vaccinate frontline workers on January 26 with 100,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine donated by India. Guinea ordered only 55 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine and distributed 25 of these amongst its officials. Morocco and Algeria have also been able to start the immunization process in recent weeks.

According to Johns Hopkins University, Africa had recorded more than 3.6 million COVID-19 cases up to the beginning of February while the death toll has increased by 40% since the 1st of January and reached 92,000 people. In terms of the number of secured doses to vaccinate the population, Africa also occupies one of the worst positions. As of now, the number of doses it has bought or ordered enables it to immunize only 33% of its population, second only to Asia which has secured 15% while North America has access to as much as 229% and occupies the position of a world leader.