Africa To Use Ksh 1,200,000,000,000 To Access Covid-19 Vaccine

Africa might need 1,200,000,000,000 shillings to access the coming COVID-19 vaccine. The African Union has a commitment of 500,000,000,000 shillings promised by the World Bank and other donors.

The African Union informed African Nations during a meeting following an announcement by global pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTec that their vaccine candidate was showing 90 percent efficacy. The firms are now pushing for emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration.

The meeting convened by President Cyril Ramaphosa of the Republic of South Africa was meant to discuss Africa’s strategy for financing Covid-19 vaccines and to assess options for acquisitions of vaccines in Africa

Ramaphosa noted that funding for the COVID-19 vaccine in Africa was expected to come from three sources, the COVAX Donor Initiative, the World Bank, direct donors, and African Import-Export Bank, which has committed to raising up to $5 billion only.

According to Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Africa needs to vaccinate around 60 percent of the population to arrest further transmission and death from COVID-19.

The COVID-19 vaccine, being developed jointly with German firm BioNTech, is one of more than 40 candidate vaccines, but no other has yet made similar claims about its effectiveness.

The vaccine US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said tests involving more than 40,000 people had provided results that were a “critical milestone” in the search for a vaccine.

The companies said they could pass the final hurdles for a US rollout later this month, and could supply up to 50 million doses globally this year and up to 1.3 billion next year.

Currently, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the number of global COVID-19 cases surpassed 50 million on Sunday as global deaths surpassed the 1 Million mark.

The Johns Hopkins CSSE tally indicated that global cases reached 50,325,072 and have resulted in nearly 1.3 million deaths.

The university also said global cases topped 30 million on September 17 and rose to 40 million on October 19. It took 32 days for the global caseload to jump from 30 million to 40 million, and only 20 days from 40 million to 50 million.