Many Africans who have received their first COVID-19 vaccine do not know when they will get a second shot because deliveries are delayed, the continent’s top public health official said on Thursday.
“We cannot predict when the second doses will come and that is not good for our vaccination programme, John Nkengasong,” Head of the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said.
“Africa lags behind most other regions in COVID-19 vaccinations, with just less than 14 million doses having been administered on the continent of 1.3 billion.
Ghana, for example, has administered around 742,000 doses of the 815,000 shots it has so far received and will run out by the end of next week.
Even if Ghana had the money, they will not know where to go get the vaccine, that’s the challenge”.
So far, majority of the vaccines available in African countries have been delivered via the World Health Organisation-backed COVAX facility.
COVAX aims to deliver 600 million shots to 40 African countries this year, enough to vaccinate 20 per cent of their populations.
Majority of those doses are AstraZeneca shots produced by the Serum Institute of India.
However, as at March, India suspended its exports to meet rising domestic demand amid a surge in COVID-19 cases; That has caused great uncertainty for Africa’s vaccination rollout.
“We are in a bind as a continent,” he added. “Access to vaccines has been limited for us.”
He said he hopes India, where new infections have topped 200,000 a day, will lift its restriction as soon as possible.
People who have received their first jab are already benefiting protection from the virus, he said, and he urged nations to use their doses before they expire.
