In Africa, only 4% of people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Leaders had once hoped to have 60% of people living on the continent vaccinated this year.
That now appears unlikely.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners said they do hope to provide African countries with 30% of the vaccines the continent needs by February, the Associated Press reports.
Most of the 5.7 billion vaccine doses administered globally so far have been in just 10 wealthy countries, as the U.N.-backed COVAX initiative has missed all of its targets. COVAX is now begging rich countries to share their vaccine doses, according to the AP.
Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of vaccine alliance Gavi, tells the AP that COVAX expects to have 1.4 billion doses ready for delivery by the end of 2021, about one-quarter fewer than its original goal.
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WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday that the disparity between rich and poor countries in terms of COVID-19 vaccine distribution is a “solvable problem.”
Twelve African countries so far have hit the target of 10% fully vaccinated, but the larger countries with poorer populations are lagging behind, according to WHO data.
The slow rate of vaccination is partly due to issues around distributing the vaccines, such as the lack of
health infrastructure, funding for medical supplies used during vaccination and staff.
Tedros has asked pharmaceutical companies to share their vaccines globally. Tedros has also called for a moratorium on booster shots in healthy people until the end of 2021.
Richer countries appear to be ignoring his plea. The United Kingdom announced on Tuesday that it will offer boosters to people over the age of 50, as well as younger, vulnerable individuals, joining Israel, France and Germany, who have already started booster efforts. An advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will meet to consider the issue of boosters for Americans this week.
The move in some countries towards a rollout of boosters is happening even as new reports cast doubt on the need for third shots in healthy people. In fact, earlier this week two top officials from the FDA and senior WHO scientists helped write an opinion piece in The Lancet voicing opposition to boosters.
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The question of boosters in Africa is an expensive one that would require $500 million to $600 million more “on the conservative side,” with logistics of $1 billion a year, Afreximbank President Benedict Oramah says.
The African Union’s envoy for COVID-19 vaccines, Strive Masiyiwa, says that export restrictions and intellectual property rights should be lifted to allow vaccine production within Africa. The WHO and partners prepared for this in June by launching a hub in South Africa that could make the vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
However, neither of the companies has agreed to share the vaccine recipes and they show no indication that they will do so, according to the AP.
“It’s not an unreasonable call, because our neighbors in the U.S. supported these companies to produce some of these vaccines,” Masiyiwa shares. “Now let this miracle be available to all mankind.”
If you are unable to get a vaccine at this time, it is important that you be safe and take the necessary precautions to protect yourself and others.
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