Vaccination rates remain sluggish with less than two percent of Africans fully vaccinated.
Coronavirus cases have been rising in Africa since the start of the third wave on the continent in May. Sixteen African countries are now seeing a resurgence of the virus, with the more contagious Delta strain detected in 10 of them.
Vaccination rates remain sluggish, with only 16m people, 2% of the African population, fully vaccinated. But, said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organisation (WHO)'s regional director for Africa, there was some room for optimism because vaccine deliveries were picking up after grinding to a near halt in May and early June.
In the previous two weeks up to July 8th, more than 1.6m doses were delivered to Africa through the Covax scheme, which was set up to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines to poorer countries. A US shipment of 20m Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer‐BioNTech is due to arrive soon, to be distributed to 49 countries. Donations from Norway and Sweden are due to follow.
Africa has so far received 66m doses and has administered 50m of them. Moeti urged governments to expand vaccination sites and take other measures to take advantage of the vaccine deliveries when they come. (© AFP 8/7 2021)
Strive Masiyiwa, the Zimbabwean telecoms tycoon and one of the lead figures in the African Union (AU)'s effort to speed up deliveries, told Bloomberg News: “Now is the time for Europe to open up its production facilities so we can buy vaccines… not a single dose, not one vial has left a European factory for Africa.”
He added, “… when we've gone to talk to their manufacturers they tell us they are completely maxed out meeting the needs of Europe”.
However, in what looks like a case of vaccine diplomacy, Rwanda has signed a $3.6m partnership with the European Union (EU) to upgrade its laboratory capacity to attract investors to manufacture Covid‐19 vaccines. Rwanda is the first country to get EU funding for vaccine production. The main hurdle now is getting private investors on board, although President Paul Kagame told the Qatar Economic Forum in late June that negotiations with private sector firms to manufacture vaccines have advanced and that the production process would start “in a few months”. (Africa Confidential 2/7)
The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) announced on June 30th a joint financing package of €600m for Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd., headquartered in South Africa, to expand local vaccine manufacturing capacity. A statement by the US State Department said DFC is working together with DEG of Germany, Proparco of France and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an affiliate of the World Bank, to provide financing support. The vaccines will be primarily distributed to the AU, South African government and Covax, the statement said. (PANA 1/7)
African finance ministers and the World Bank met on June 21st to fast‐track vaccine acquisition on the continent. In a boost to the AU’s target to vaccinate 60% of the continent’s population by 2022, the World Bank and the AU announced that they are partnering to support the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) initiative with resources to allow countries to purchase and deploy vaccines for up to 400m people across Africa.
AVATT, which is an initiative of the AU Commission, Africa CDC, Afreximbank, the AU special envoys for Covid‐19, and UNECA, has already successfully negotiated 220m doses of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Covid‐19 vaccine for use by African countries, with an option for 180m more based on demand. (PANA 22/6)
Developing African Vaccines
Prof. Godwin Bazuaye, Chief Medical Director at Nigeria’s privately‐run Igebinedion University Teaching Hospital (IUHT), said the risk of new strains arising from increased human interactions remained a threat until Africa creates its own vaccine.
“The environment in Africa which is closer to the Equator has played a major role in the low number of caseload fatalities reported in Africa. We also have the relatively good health enjoyed by the population as well as our genetic make‐up which combined have played a key role in these low caseloads,” said Prof. Bazuaye.
Dr Philip Onyebujoh, a disease surveillance expert, said the development of a vaccine would help generate crucial data bank on genes.
“We have the greatest genetic diversity in Africa. We need to capture this genetic data in order to come up with at least three different vaccine candidates which could make it easier to develop our own African vaccines,” said Dr Onyebujoh. (PANA 21/6)
Africa currently imports 99% of its vaccine needs.
Egypt has recently launched the production process for manufacturing vaccines. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli has said that the country will increase the domestic production of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine to reach 80m doses before the end of 2021. At a press conference on July 5th, Madbouli stressed that such an increase will allow the government to inoculate 40m citizens before the end of 2021, adding that the state will also receive millions of other jabs from several international companies.
In order to be able to achieve this significant increase in the production of vaccines, Madbouli said that the manufacturing capacity of the Egyptian Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines (Vacsera) would be increased from 300,000 to 600,000 jabs per day. The PM noted that Vacsera has locally produced about 1m doses of the Sinovac vaccine so far.
Moroccan media lauded an agreement signed between the government and Chinese firm Sinopharm which will see the kingdom producing 5m vaccines per month, gradually increasing over time. Privately owned website Hespress called the decision “historic”, saying that it put Morocco “at the cross‐roads of south‐south cooperation”, providing vaccines not only for its own citizens but for all of Africa.
Morocco's vaccination campaign has had one of the fastest rollouts in the region, thanks to a steady supply of Sinopharm and AstraZeneca jabs. The Health Ministry said on June 5th that it had fully vaccinated more than 9.8m people, over a quarter of the population. (BBC Monitoring 5,7/7; RFI 10/7)