Large parts of Africa do not yet have access to coronary vaccines. WHO fears that new virus variants will develop among unvaccinated people in African countries.
While Norway and other rich countries can reopen society after extensive vaccination, the situation is completely different in many poor parts of the world.
Especially in Africa, there are many countries where vaccination is still in its infancy. Only 4.4 percent of the continent’s population has so far been fully vaccinated, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated at the end of September.
– The latest figures show a modest improvement. But there is still a long way to go before we reach the WHO’s goal of 40 percent fully vaccinated by the end of the year, said Richard Mihigo, who heads the organization’s vaccination work in Africa.
Progress in Morocco
Although the overall picture is disappointing, there are major differences between the African countries. Some of them have come a long way.
In Morocco, 62 per cent are fully vaccinated, and in Tunisia the proportion is 28 per cent. The island states of Mauritius and the Seychelles have reached 62 and 72 percent, respectively, according to BBC.
But many of the countries that are best located he, have a relatively small population. Several of the largest countries are far down the list of vaccinated.
- In Nigeria, which has over 200 million inhabitants and Africa’s largest population, less than 3 percent are fully vaccinated.
- Egypt, which has about 100 million inhabitants and the largest population of all the Arab countries, has fully vaccinated about 5 percent.
–– Breeding places
Of all the 54 African countries, only 15 have passed 10 percent fully vaccinated, according to the WHO. The organization has previously set a goal that this milestone should be reached by the end of September.
Only in half of the African countries is more than 2 percent fully vaccinated.
Not only does the situation make hundreds of millions of Africans more vulnerable to serious illness. The WHO fears that new, dangerous virus variants will emerge and develop in unvaccinated population groups.
“The staggering inequality and major delays in vaccine deliveries threaten to turn areas in Africa into breeding grounds for vaccine-resistant varieties,” Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s Regional Director for Africa, said in mid-September.
– This can eventually take the whole world back to square one, she warned.
International cooperation
The main reason for the low vaccination rate in Africa is the lack of vaccine doses. Poor African countries naturally have less money to spend on vaccine purchases than richer countries such as Norway, the USA and Israel.
They also do not have their own well-developed vaccine production such as China and India. Instead, African countries have had to focus on donations from richer countries, and the international vaccine collaboration Covax.
But earlier this year, there were fewer Covax doses than expected. Covax relied heavily on AstraZeneca doses from the Serum Institute in India – the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer. And in April, India had to stop exports due to an urgent domestic need for more doses.
Biden promises more
In recent months, the situation has improved somewhat. In total, African countries received 23 million vaccine doses in September, which was ten times more than in June.
During the UN General Assembly last week, President Joe Biden announced that the United States will donate 500 million doses of the vaccine to Pfizer / Biontech. Thus, the United States as a whole has promised to donate over one billion doses to other countries.
– To win over the pandemic here, we must beat it everywhere, said Biden.
In addition to the fact that African countries have struggled to obtain enough doses, there is also a certain amount of vaccine skepticism in some of them. In the same way as in rich western countries it was earlier this year a number of Africans who claimed that the vaccines were not well enough tested.
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