Africa still far from the Covid-19 vaccination targets
Less than 4% of the population of the African continent received a first dose.
© Simon MAINA / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
During the UN General Assembly, US President Joe Biden invited the international community to a virtual summit to relaunch anti-Covid vaccination around the world.
The ambition is great: to vaccinate 70% of the population of each country on the planet by the next General Assembly.
In Africa, we are starting a long way since less than 4% of the continent's population has received a first dose.
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If Africa has recorded 8 million cases of Covid and 200,000 deaths since the start of the epidemic, these are respectively eight and six times less than in Europe.
But if the number of new cases has been declining for four weeks across the continent, this slowdown is much slower than in the first wave.
There are still 110,000 new cases and 3,000 deaths from the coronavirus in one week, mainly in South Africa, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and Ethiopia.
Sixteen countries are also in the middle of the third wave and cases are on the increase in Angola, Benin and Côte d'Ivoire.
Delay of deliveries for Africa
That is why scientists at the WHO are worried.
They fear a sudden resurgence of the epidemic in the coming months, on the occasion of the end of the year celebrations.
Because the populations of Africa are currently very little vaccinated: 3 to 4% have received a first dose, against 60% in rich countries which are already at their third injection.
Some countries like Burundi or Eritrea have not even started the anti-Covid vaccination campaign.
More than the resistance of the populations to the vaccine, it is the delay in deliveries to Africa that is the cause: 500 million doses are missing from the Covax device for it to reach its objective, namely to vaccinate 40% of the population. African by the end of the year.
International solidarity, which we have called for, moreover, has failed.
We have seen each country play more or less solo.
This is a situation that unfortunately risks turning against everyone.
Richard Mihigo (WHO), on vaccination in Africa: "It is an observation of global failure"
Claire Fages
► See also: Anti-Covid vaccine: millions of doses produced in South Africa sent to Europe
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Health and medicine
Africa
Coronavirus
Vaccines
WHO