COVID-19 VACCINATION - Africa's Conspicuous Exclusion

Similar to the HIV pandemic where Africa was withheld medical assistance for many years, the same seems to be happening with the COVID-19 VACCINATION. According to Worldwide DATA on the vaccines’ distribution, Africa is almost entirely excluded. Can this be a coincidence or is it premeditated?

Time and time again, Africa’s cry for help keeps getting ignored. For over half a century, issues like insecurity, human rights violation, child labor, poverty and hunger, have plagued the continent. While these issues are relatively confined to African countries and are understandably hard to fix, the Covid19 pandemic is a different matter.

With reports from CNN suggesting that Africa nations are being left behind in obtaining Covid-19 vaccines; it’s hard to argue against the overwhelming evidence. The year 2020 was a test of every country’s medical infrastructure, and while Africa wasn’t so much affected by the plague, the narrative has somewhat changed in 2021, amidst rise of a mutated coronavirus and a surge in cases; with South Africa suffering the most from this mutation.

What are the facts?

·      Richer countries continue to stockpile vaccines, prioritizing their populations; with Canada and UK purchasing vaccines covering 500% and 300% of their population respectively.

·      In Africa, South Africa suffers most from the virus (45,000 deaths to 1.5million cases) and are forced to seal their own deals; acquiring COVID19 vaccines at twice the price.

·      African countries who cannot seal their own deals, have to wait for the African Union’s (AU) promised 270 million doses of secured Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. The problem: the first batch of doses is set to arrive as late as June.

Africa’s Big Dilemma

The African continent faces a long wait for COVID19 vaccines, with no clear plans for distribution. In fact, so far only a modest amount of the AstraZeneca vaccines has reached Africa. This figure is worrisome considering the Johns Hopkins University data shows that cases in Africa have reached 3.6 million total cases, with a 40% increase in death rates starting from January 1.

This begs the question; if the virus has mutated in these African countries, why are richer countries hoarding vaccines and ignoring the possibilities of a rapid global increase in cases?

South Africa, a country full of massive tourist attraction, suffers most from the new virus variant, with health experts now testifying that present vaccines may have little effect on treatment. While this may yet be proven, the vaccine supply to African countries is too little to arrive at any conclusion.

The Fight against Unfair Vaccine Distribution

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized the potential demerits of excluding African countries. The head of Africa’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; John Nkengasong believes that an increase in vaccine supply along with aggressive public health measure can reduce the issue of COVID19 variants. Without the vaccines, however, cases will only increase.

It would seem WHO has taken a step further to boost access to tests, vaccines and treatments in African countries. WHO has set up an initiative called ‘Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator’ which plans to adequately distribute 2 billion COVID-19 doses globally by year’s end; with an estimated 690 million headed for Africa. Should this forecast be true, only 27% of the population in Africa will be serviced by year’s end; a far cry from Europe’s summer figure of 70% of adult population treatment.

Current Vaccine Developments in Africa

South Africa remains the only African country with over a million vaccines procured. However, new reports show that AstraZeneca vaccines are not at all effective against the new COVID19 variants—worrisome. Only four other African countries; Morocco, Algeria, Egypt (North Africa) and Seychelles have started vaccinating their populations.

West African countries like Ghana and Nigeria are working desperately with AU to procure vaccines before June. Ghana, which is battling a severe second wave, hopes to purchase 17 million doses by June. Nigeria, on the other hand suffers from oxygen shortages, and has been promised immediate COVAX vaccines through the WHO’s ACT accelerator. However, developments are slow and hard to identify. In East Africa, Kenya hopes to start vaccinating its population this month; and Uganda, like most African countries is dependent on COVAX program.

Overall, Africa is well and truly far behind in the COVID19 developments. The data compiled by Our World in Data above shows this perfectly well.