By George Obulutsa and Omar Mohammed
NAIROBI (Reuters) – Sixteen African countries have expressed interest in securing COVID-19 vaccines under an African Union (AU) plan, and allocations could be announced in the next three weeks, said the head of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC) said on Thursday.
Although many wealthy nations have already started mass vaccination campaigns, only a few African countries have started vaccination, and the 55-member African Union expects to see 60% of the continent’s 1.3 billion people immunized in the next three years.
The AU has so far secured about 670 million doses for its member states.
Africa CDC Director John Nkengasong said the 16 countries had requested a total of 114 million doses under the AU Vaccine Procurement Task Team (AVATT), which started work in mid-January.
“Our hope is that in the next two to three weeks, they will be getting the vaccines,” he said at a virtual news conference.
Africa is also expected to receive about 600 million doses of vaccines this year through the facilities of COVAX, co-led by the World Health Organization.
In a later statement, WHO director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said that nearly 90 million doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine could begin to reach the continent later this month.
“These doses would help countries reach 3% of their populations in the first half of 2021, targeting the most at-risk groups, especially frontline health professionals,” she said.
Moeti said that about 320,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have been distributed in Cape Verde, Rwanda, South Africa and Tunisia, and deliveries are expected this month.
The installation of COVAX aims to help guarantee vaccines for 20% of Africans, which means about 600 million doses, said Moeti.
Africa has so far reported 3.5 million coronavirus infections and 88,000 deaths, according to a Reuters count.
(Reporting by George Obulutsa and Omar Mohammed; Editing by Giles Elgood and Kevin Liffey)