NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – The African Union has secured nearly 300 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine in the largest deal to date for Africa, a continental official said on Tuesday.
Nicaise Ndembi, senior scientific adviser at the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Associated Press in an interview that current AU President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to announce the news on Wednesday.
The 300 million doses are being secured regardless of COVAX’s global effort to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to lower-income countries, Ndembi said.
“We’ve reached the final stage of our bids,” he said, referring to questions about who will provide the vaccines and what the cost of the next ad will be.
The news comes when coronavirus infections are on the rise again in some areas of Africa, especially in South Africa, where a rapidly spreading variant of coronavirus constitutes the majority of new cases. The continent surpassed the 3 million confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic over the weekend, with more than 1.2 million in South Africa.
“We plan to have them by the end of the first quarter” of 2021, Ndembi said of the nearly 300 million doses, which will be allocated to the continental shelf the AU created last year to facilitate the combination of the 54 African countries. their purchasing power and buy pandemic supplies in bulk.
“We expect 600 million doses from COVAX facilities,” he said, but African officials are still waiting for the details, so “we are happy to have alternative solutions.”
Ndembi said African officials have approached at least 10 vaccine manufacturers and developers, as the continent seeks to vaccinate 60% of its 1.3 billion people, or about 780 million people. The CDC in Africa has said that about 1.5 billion doses are needed for this, assuming two doses per person. The effort is estimated to cost about $ 10 billion.
Ndembi has said he is very optimistic that it can be achieved in two years. The CDC in Africa has warned that taking much longer for this means that the virus will become endemic in some parts of the African continent.
In an address to South Africans Monday night, Ramaphosa announced that the country had secured 20 million doses of vaccine “to be administered mainly in the first half of the year.” He did not give further details, but said that “we will make more announcements when we conclude our negotiations with the vaccine manufacturers.”
Africa has traded on multiple fronts for vaccine supplies. Ramaphosa said the recently created AU African Vaccine Acquisition Task Force “has done a huge job of securing vaccine doses” through what he called intensive engagement with manufacturers.
“The South African government has also collaborated directly with several vaccine manufacturers for more than six months,” he said.
“Given the huge global demand for vaccines and the much greater purchasing power of richer countries, we are exploring all avenues to get as many vaccine doses as soon as possible,” Ramaphosa said.
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