World Bank, AU to deploy vaccines for 400m Africans

The World Bank (WB) and the African Union (AU) COVID-19 Vaccine Procurement Task Force (AVATT) have announced their decision to work together to deploy vaccines for 400 million Africans.

The engagement came after World Bank President David Malpass met with AVATT to discuss ways to accelerate vaccine deployment in Africa, according to a joint statement by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

AVATT had previously obtained up to 400 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s single-injection vaccine against COVID-19 with support from the African Import-Export Bank (Afreximbank).

The bank and AVATT stressed the importance that countries receive sufficient doses as quickly as possible and at an affordable price, the statement said.

COVID-19 vaccines were essential to achieving the goal of vaccinating at least 60% of Africans, said John Nkengasong, director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and member of AVATT.

Benedict Oramah, Chairman of Afreximbank, said his bank, by providing a $ 2 billion guarantee on behalf of AU member states, was able to help put Africa in a negotiating position with producers to negotiate the purchase of vaccines.

As part of the AVATT structure, AU Member States received vaccines according to the size of their population through a pooled procurement mechanism.

Once the vaccines arrive in Africa, additional efforts would be needed to support their deployment, including distribution in the country (logistics and storage in accordance with cold chain requirements), securing the systems, capacities and capacities required for the vaccination.

As of Monday evening, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Africa had reached 5,049,036, with 134,818 deaths and 4,524,651 recoveries, according to the Africa CDC.

African countries have so far acquired around 54.9 million COVID-19 vaccines, which could cover around 2.1% of the population at the continental level, the Africa CDC said.

Some 35.9 million doses of COVID-19 have been administered continent-wide, representing about 65% of the total available supply in Africa.

With minimal access to COVID-19 vaccines across the continent, the latest figures show that only around 0.6% of Africa’s population has received a full vaccination schedule.

(NAN)