Has received 1.5 percent of the world’s vaccine doses – VG

At a vaccine center in Hammanskraal in South Africa, a woman with a yellow hat gets a vaccine in her arm. She is one of very few on the continent.

New figures in VG show that only 1.52 percent of the 4.2 billion vaccine doses set in the world are set on the African continent.

This means that the vast majority of countries in Africa have a coverage rate of well below one percent of the population. In total, African countries have administered 65 million vaccine doses.

This means that Germany has received almost twice as many vaccine doses as an entire continent.

Infection record

And now the delta variant has fully reached many countries on the continent.

A variant that is more contagious and potentially produces more severe covid-19. In several West African countries, the delta variant is now washing through the population. Infection records are set and the hospitals are filled up.

In South Africa, the province of Gauteng in particular – where the million-strong city of Johannesburg is located – has been hit hard. There, hospitals must reject ambulances with covid-sick patients.

– Desperately ill patients are brought to us in cars. They have been rejected at other hospitals, says an unnamed doctor CNN.

In Norway, most people have been offered the first dose, for many young people the second dose is only a few days away. The elderly and at-risk groups have long been fully vaccinated.

Where did Africa’s vaccine doses go?

COVAX – which undertook to provide a share of the vaccine doses to low- and middle-income countries – has faced a number of challenges.

Western countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have stepped in to ensure the shortage of vaccines for their own people. They now have a vaccination rate of 49.1 and 57 percent, respectively.

0.7 percent

For the most part, COVAX has had to accept donations from high-income countries such as Norway. Among other things, Uganda has received the AstraZeneca doses that Norway would not have in its vaccination program.

They have now received 864,000 vaccine doses through the COVAX alliance.

Prior to these deliveries, the country has a vaccination rate of 0.7 per cent of the population.

At a health center in western Uganda, an elderly woman has her dress sleeve rolled up and the vaccine injected into her arm. She is one of the 1.1 million who have received a dose in the country.

Deliveries to COVAX were severely delayed when India decided to stop exporting vaccines from its vaccine factory in April because they themselves experienced a dramatic increase in infection and a shortage of vaccines.

Other vaccines are secured through the African Union. Among other things, they deliver 29 million Janssen vaccines to the most populous country on the African continent – Nigeria. They also receive four million Moderna vaccines and 700,000 AstraZeneca vaccines through COVAX, as well as the United States and the United Kingdom.

This is because the vast majority of vaccine doses set on the African continent are set in two countries. Of the 65 million doses given in Africa, 51 percent of them are given in South Africa and Morocco.

Half to two countries

Thus, these two countries have secured more than half of the already minimal share that has gone to African countries. In South Africa, however, only 5.4 per cent of the population has been vaccinated. In Morocco, 28.3 percent – the only African country that has vaccinated more than ten percent of the population.

They stand out by being countries where the authorities themselves have secured doses other than COVAX and bilateral donations. For South Africa has ordered 40 million Pfizer and 30 million Janssen doses.

Before Christmas, Morocco secured an agreement to import 65 million doses from Chinese Sinopharm and AstraZeneca.

WHO: Wait with the third dose

The huge difference in vaccine distribution has caused the WHO to sound the alarm. They ask rich countries to wait to put the third dose in the population, before 10 percent of the world’s population has been vaccinated.

– We will have to focus on getting those who are most exposed, and most at risk of getting a serious disease course and perhaps death, vaccinated with two injections, he says.

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