By CGTN Africa
So far Africa has administered just over 25 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines which are about 1.5 percent of the doses given worldwide, head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Saturday.
“And this is tragic,” Tedros said at a meeting of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union on access to vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic for the African continent.
“In the past two weeks, we are seeing some progress … with a good number of countries committing to share and equitable distribution of vaccines, but vaccine nationalism still holds us back,” he added.
The WHO boss stated that the organization was working to bring immediate solutions for equitable distribution of the vaccine doses.
“At the same time, we cannot let down our guard. What is happening now in many other parts of the world can also happen in Africa,” he said.
According to Tedros, the pandemic has shown that Africa cannot rely solely on imports of vaccines from the rest of the world.
“We must build that capacity, not only for COVID-19 vaccines but for other vaccines and medical products. But at the same time we have to focus on the immediate solution of vaccine sharing, as I said earlier, ” he added.
The African continent has recorded over 4.7 million COVID-19 cases with more than 4.2 recoveries and 126,000 deaths, according to the WHO tally.
WHO Africa Director Matshidiso Moeti said on Thursday that COVID-19 vaccine shipment to Africa slowed down in Maat due to the “reliance on India as one of the key manufactures globally and a devastating surge of infections in India.
According to the WHO, the African continent was expecting 66 million COVID-19 vaccine doses through the COVAX facility from February to May, but instead, it has so far received only 18.2 million doses, according to the WHO.
