Africa Will Get 220 Million Doses Of Covid-19 Vaccine – WHO

The World Health Organisation – WHO – says Africa will get at least 220 million initial doses of COVID-19 vaccines once it is approved.

WHO Africa Program Area Manager Richard Mihigo said the distribution across countries on the continient will be based on their population.

He added that the first batch will prioritise front-line healthcare workers and vulnerable groups.

Mr Mihigo said all 54 countries with a total population of more than 1.3 billion people have expressed interest in the Covid-19 vaccine.

The global vaccine initiative, called COVAX, intends to help purchase and fairly distribute 2 billion doses of approved vaccines by the end of 2021.

The initiative has nine vaccine candidates that are being tested globally.

Two of the vaccine candidates are currently being tested in Africa, according to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) head, Richard Hatchett.

In Africa, over one million people have recovered from the disease out of the 1,260,400 infected, according to the Africa Centre for Disease Control (Africa CDC).

Data from the Africa CDC shows that 30,065 others died from complications during the pandemic.

Five countries, according to the Africa Union, contributed to 70 per cent of the COVID-19 cases on the continent. They are South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Ethiopia.

South Africa with over 630,000 confirmed cases account for half of Africa’s infections from the pandemic, Africa CDC said.

By Wednesday evening, Egypt has reported the second-highest number of infections on the continent so far – 99,115 cases – with 5,440 deaths from the disease.

With over 54,000 cases, Nigeria has the third highest infections from COVID-19 and 1,027 deaths.

Southern Africa region remains the most infected and is trailed by northern Africa, and western Africa regions, according to the Africa CDC.