The African Union on Wednesday announced that it has purchased 270 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines for the continent from Pfizer and AstraZeneca through the Serum Institute of India, and from Johnson & Johnson.
At least 50 million of the doses are to be available by April to June and the rest are to be delivered before the end of the year, said the African Union chairman, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“From the onset of this crisis, our focus as a continent has been on collaboration and collective effort. We have held steadfastly to the principle that no country should be left behind,” Ramaphosa said in a statement.
Photo: AFP
The purchase agreements were negotiated by the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team established by the African Union, the statement said.
The news comes as COVID-19 infections are spiking again in parts of Africa.
The continent has surpassed 3 million confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic, with more than 1.2 million in South Africa, where a rapidly spreading variant of COVID-19 makes up most of its new cases.
The acquisition of 270 million doses would complement the 600 million doses expected to be made available to Africa by the Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX) platform.
The new purchases and the COVAX doses would provide Africa with about half of the doses that it requires, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.
The continent seeks to vaccinate about 780 million people, representing about 60 percent of its population of 1.3 billion.
The Africa CDC has said that 1.5 billion doses are needed for that, assuming two doses per person, at an estimated cost of about US$10 billion.
Financing for individual countries wanting to buy the vaccines is to be available through the African Export-Import Bank, the African Union statement said.
It is hoped that international donors would ensure that more vaccines are provided through COVAX, to reduce any new debt burden on African states, the statement said.
“Given the virulent nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear that a threat to one nation and continent is a threat to all,” the statement said. “To successfully eradicate the global threat of the disease, it is critical that a majority of citizens of all nations get urgent and equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccines as soon as possible,” it added.
“There is a long road ahead, but as Africa, we are now seeing progress in our shared effort to defeat this disease,” Ramaphosa said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS