Portugal, which has been hard hit by the Covid-19, is helping its former colonies.

The country will send at least one million doses of Covid-19 vaccine to Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa and East Timor from the second half of 2021, the government predicts.

This should relieve the continent, pending the Covax system, the initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO), which wants to make access to vaccines more equitable between developed and underdeveloped countries.

Portugal is targeting, above all, the group of African countries of the Portuguese official language (Palop): Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea and São Tomé and Príncipe, as well as East Timor, a former Portuguese colony in Southeast Asia.

"In round figures, this means securing a million doses, given that we have bought around 20 million doses," Portuguese Minister of Affairs Augusto Santos Silva said on Wednesday February 24 at a press conference. .

He thus confirmed the announcements of the day before by Prime Minister António Costa.

Portugal can, however, claim up to 35 million doses in 2021 in the European Union system, according to Reuters.

The share he promises to distribute could then rise to 1.75 million doses.

"We hope that this vaccine distribution begins during the second half of the year," said the Portuguese foreign minister, but that would depend on the "rate of deliveries from pharmaceutical laboratories", compared to the doses purchased by Portugal, reported the daily Público.

Portugal records the strongest pandemic decline

For several weeks, Portugal recorded the highest number of contaminations in the world, compared to its population of 10 million inhabitants.

Arriving at the saturation of its dilapidated health system, the country has been confined since mid-January.

But, conversely, the country experienced last week the strongest decline in the world: -51% of new cases per day, or 2,100 fewer daily cases.

According to the newsletter of the Directorate General of Health published Monday, February 22, 61 deaths and 549 new cases have been recorded, the lowest toll of new contaminations since early October.

So far, 294,000 people have received the first dose of vaccine and 106,000 people have received both doses, or 6.81 doses administered for every 100 inhabitants - France, on the other hand, has a rate of 5.66 for each. 100 inhabitants -, according to figures published Tuesday 23 February by Público.

The country now plans to vaccinate 70% of its population by the summer.

Ghana receives very first Covax deliveries

At least 217 million doses have been administered worldwide, according to a count made by AFP.

But more than nine out of ten doses were injected in countries with "high" or "upper middle" income, as defined by the World Bank.

The countries of the African continent - 1.3 billion inhabitants - are struggling to have access to anti-Covid-19 vaccines.

Only a few countries were able to start their vaccination campaign.

It was not until Wednesday February 24 that the first global delivery of vaccines via the Covax mechanism took place in Ghana.

The WHO system aims to democratize vaccines and provide 92 middle- and low-income countries with enough doses to vaccinate 20% of their population against Covid-19.

The first 600,000 doses arrived at Accra airport, shipped by Unicef ​​from Mumbai, "are part of the first wave of Covid vaccines intended for several low and middle income countries", according to a joint statement from the WHO and Unicef.

This did not prevent the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to accuse Monday, February 22 certain rich countries of "undermining" the Covax device and of "approaching the manufacturers to ensure access to additional vaccine doses, which has an effect on the contracts with Covax ".

"The number of doses allocated to Covax has been reduced because of this," he added.

Portuguese doses in addition to Covax

Faced with these difficulties, the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs detailed that the million doses to the countries of Palop and East Timor will be distributed within the framework of "bilateral cooperation".

Either in surplus of the Covax system, explained Augusto Santos Silva.

The country has already contributed more than one million euros for the WHO system, reports the daily Correio da Manhã.

After a call from French President Emmanuel Macron, Portugal and other countries seem to be mobilizing: the European Union announced last week to allocate an additional 500 million euros to the program, thus doubling the bloc's initial contribution to Covax.

In an interview with the British daily Financial Times Thursday, February 18, Emmanuel Macron had also pleaded for rich countries to send 3 to 5% of their available doses to Africa "very quickly".

But even rich countries, the EU included, are finding it difficult to obtain and distribute much-needed doses.

As far as the African continent is concerned, the main challenge is financial.

Of the 47 countries in the WHO Africa region, "only nearly a quarter have adequate plans for resources and funding," regrets the UN agency.

Because beyond the financial, many countries also lack the infrastructure necessary for a fair vaccination campaign, between adequate roads and an effective cold chain.

It is becoming an obstacle course in mainly rural countries where temperatures often exceed 40 ° C, such as in West Africa and Mali.

According to the head of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Henrietta Fore, "the delivery of vaccines is also hampered by a lack of funding for humanitarian assistance in general and by a lack of transport, cold chains and logistics infrastructure to support the deployment, "she said in a statement released on February 17.

The global immunization effort was to include "the millions of people who live in or flee conflict and instability," she continues, "not only for reasons of justice. But (also) as the only way to end it. pandemic for all ".

So many challenges that make vaccine equity "the biggest moral test" in the world, according to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

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The first vaccines of the Covax device have been delivered to Ghana

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