According to data released by the African Center for Disease Control and Prevention on April 16 local time, a total of 4396,556 confirmed cases of coronavirus have been reported in Africa, 117,057 deaths have been reported and 3943,954 cases have been cured. Data show that The countries with the highest cumulative number of confirmed cases in Africa are South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia and Egypt.
The slow pace of vaccination is worrying
According to the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Africa lags behind most other regions coronavirus vaccination. As of April 12, the AU’s 55 member states had received 34.6 million doses of the vaccine and 13.9 million doses.
To date, most vaccines in African countries or regions have been provided through the Who-supported coronavirus Vaccine Implementation Programme (Covax), which aims to provide 600 million doses of the vaccine to 40 African countries or regions this year to meet the need to vaccinate 20 per cent of its population.
Most of these vaccines are AstraZeneca vaccines produced by the Indian Serum Institute (SII). But in late March, india suspended vaccine exports to meet rising domestic demand amid a surge in confirmed cases.
John Kengelson, director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Friday that many Africans do not know when to get a second dose again because of delays in delivery, which creates great uncertainty about vaccination efforts in Africa and is bad for vaccination programs.
WHO Regional Director for Africa Moti said on the 15th, to significantly slow the spread of coronavirus, it is necessary to prevent the reduction of severe cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Each dose of coronavirus vaccine is a step closer to ending the outbreak. However, there is a global problem of uneven distribution of vaccines, with an average of one quarter of people in high-income countries already vaccinated against coronavirus, compared with only one in 500 in low-income countries, including many African countries.
Currently, about 75 per cent of the world’s coronavirus vaccines are concentrated in several developed countries. Some studies predict that the global cost of vaccine inelocation and vaccine hoarding could exceed $9 trillion.
Several developed countries order two to three times as much as their populations to cover their entire populations. They would rather waste vaccines and make them obsolete than offer them to other countries. The more times a new coronavirus is transmitted, the greater the chance of its mutation, putting everyone at greater risk.
The spread of the pandemic can be controlled only through appropriate public health measures and more equitable distribution of vaccines.
