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, chief scientific adviser to the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Associated Press in an interview that the current AU president, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, is expected to announce the news on Wednesday.
The 300 million doses are provided independently of the global COVAX effort to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to lower-income countries, Ndembi said.
“We have reached the final stage of our bids,” he said, asking questions about who will deliver the vaccines and at what cost for the next announcement.
The news comes as coronavirus infections are growing again in parts of Africa, especially in South Africa, where a rapidly spreading variant of coronavirus is now the majority of new cases. Over the weekend, the continent exceeded 3 million confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic, with over 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 that will be allocated on the continental shelf that the AU set up last year to facilitate pooling the 54 countries of Africa. their purchasing power and buy bulk supplies for the pandemic
“We are expecting 600 million doses from the COVAX plant,” 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 tries to vaccinate 60 percent of its 1.3 billion people, or about 780 million people. The CDC in Africa says about 1.5 billion doses are needed for this, assuming two doses per person. The effort is estimated to cost about $ 10 billion.
Ndembi said he was very optimistic that it could be achieved in two years. CDC Africa has warned that taking much longer risks the virus becoming endemic in parts of the African continent.
In an address to South Africans on Monday evening, Ramaphosa announced that the country had provided 20 million doses of vaccine “to be administered mainly in the first half of the year”. He did not provide further details, but said that “we will make other announcements as we conclude negotiations with vaccine manufacturers.”
Africa has fought on several fronts to obtain vaccine supplies. Ramaphosa said the newly established AU Vaccine Procurement Task Force “has done an extraordinary job of delivering vaccine doses” through what he called an intense commitment to manufacturers.
“The South African government is also working directly with several vaccine manufacturers for more than six months,” he said.
“Given the massive global demand for vaccines and the much higher purchasing power of richer countries, we are exploring all avenues to get as many doses of vaccine as possible as soon as possible,” Ramaphosa said.
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