The "acute phase" of the Covid-19 pandemic will end this year if the target of 70% of the world's population vaccinated is reached, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

“We are counting on an end to the acute phase of the pandemic this year, on the condition of course that 70% of the world's population is vaccinated by the middle of the year, around June or July”, declared to the press Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, visiting South Africa.

“If that's the case, the acute phase can really end, and that's what we expect.

It's in our hands.

It's not a matter of luck, it's a matter of choice,” he added.

The WHO chief was visiting the labs of the Cape Town-based biotech company Afrigen, which made the first messenger RNA vaccine against Covid-19 in Africa.

Support for the development of vaccine manufacturing in Africa

Developed from the sequencing of the publicly available genetic code from the Moderna laboratory, this vaccine will be ready for clinical trials in November, and its registration is planned for 2024. “This vaccine will be more adapted to the contexts in which it will be used, with less storage constraints and at a lower price,” said the WHO chief.

The Afrigen project is supported by the WHO and the Covax international mechanism for access to vaccines.

The WHO “is committed to supporting the development of local manufacturing (of vaccines) in Africa and elsewhere in the world in order to improve health security” on all continents, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

On a visit to Cape Town with him, the Belgian Minister for Development Cooperation, Meryame Kitir, criticized the slowness of discussions with a view to obtaining a regime derogating from patent law on vaccines.

“Vaccines should be a public good, but after two years of a pandemic (…) we have made no progress” in these discussions, she regretted.

The vaccination rate in Africa (11% of the population) is the lowest in the world.

The continent must “multiply the vaccination rate” against Covid sixfold to hope to reach the target of 70% vaccination coverage set for the end of the first half of 2022, according to WHO Africa.

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  • WHO

  • Health

  • Covid-19

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  • Africa

  • Vaccination

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