The Paxlovid pill, used to treat COVID-19, will be distributed to African nations, according to a memorandum of understanding (MOU) inked by the continent’s main public health organisation, CDC, and Pfizer.
In persons at high risk of severe disease, data from a mid-to-late stage research published last November indicated that the antiviral medicine was over 90% effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths when compared to a placebo.
“We have signed the MOU with Pfizer and we are going to be able to make that particular treatment available to African countries,” said Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, the acting director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to Ouma, the MOU would make Paxlovid accessible to African nations at no cost.
The MOU was complete, according to the Africa CDC, an organisation of the 55-member African Union, but it needed to be approved by its legal department.
According to the World Health Organisation, WHO, COVID-19-related mortality on the continent are predicted to decline by over 94 percent in 2022 compared to last year.
Data from the WHO Africa office show that as of the end of May, Africa had recorded more than 11.8 million confirmed COVID-19 infections and more than 250,000 fatalities since the pandemic started.
At the beginning of the epidemic, certain African nations had difficulty fighting the virus because wealthy nations had stockpiled COVID-19 vaccine doses.
In spite of the fact that wealthy nations stockpiled accessible doses of the COVID-19 vaccine early in the pandemic, many African nations are currently well-stocked with shots but are having trouble putting them into the hands of soldiers due to logistical and hesitancy problems.
