The African Union has reportedly secured close to 300 million Covid-19 vaccine doses for the continent.
But that number of doses still falls short of the anticipated doses required for protection for the over 1.2 billion people in Africa.
Over 3,085,009 cases of the virus have been confirmed in Africa and more than 73,504 deaths, according to Africa CDC.
#COVID19 update in Africa as of 13/01/2021 at 9 AM EAT. Cases — 3,107,979., Deaths – 74,444 and Recoveries –2,538,888.
More at https://t.co/7xkrFH4etK#AfricaResponds #TestTraceTreat #FactsNotFear pic.twitter.com/Oc2nS2asMx— Africa CDC (@AfricaCDC) January 13, 2021
The Associated Press quoted an adviser for the Africa Centers for Disease Control (CDC) who confirmed the 300 million doses that have been secured so far.
Nicaise Ndembi was reported as saying that AU chair, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, should make an official announcement about this on Wednesday.
According to Ndembi the vaccine doses are being secured independently of the global Covax effort.
Individual African countries are also negotiating large purchase agreements with pharmaceuticals as well.
South Africa is expected to get one million vaccine doses from the Serum Institute of India (SII) this month and an extra 500,000 doses in February.
There are other African countries hoping to also secure vaccines from February to protect their citizens.
Source: Africafeeds.com
