Africa’s slow vaccine rollout could endanger millions of lives — on and off the continent.

By Amelia Nierenberg and Jonathan Wolfe

This is the Coronavirus Briefing, an informed guide to the pandemic. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.

India continues to shatter case records as it awaits international aid.

The Biden administration is expected to share up to 60 million AstraZeneca doses with other nations after a safety review.

The E.U. sued AstraZeneca over missing vaccine doses.

Get the latest updates here, as well as maps and vaccines in development.

The African vaccine rollout

Of the one billion shots given around the world, 82 percent have been given in high- and upper-middle-income countries. Only 0.2 percent of doses have been administered in low-income countries — pockets of infection that can produce variants that put us all in danger.

To understand the situation in a region with one of the lowest inoculation rates — the African continent — we spoke with our colleague Abdi Latif Dahir, a Times correspondent based in Nairobi.

How is the rollout going in Africa?

About 15 million people have received doses, about 1 percent of the continent’s population, and only about 36 million have been acquired. Aside from the Seychelles and Morocco, no other African country has vaccinated more than 5 percent of its population.

The African Union and Covax, a global vaccine-sharing initiative, are the main actors working on the rollout, which has been painfully slow. And there’s an issue. Covax plans to supply only a portion of what countries need. Kenya, for example, hopes to vaccinate 30 percent of its population — nowhere near herd immunity — by 2023. And Covax will cover only the first 20 percent. Kenya will need to pay $130 million to make up the rest.

“Tourism is down,” Abdi said. “There are major lockdowns. Curfews start at 8 p.m., so everyone has to scramble to be home before dark. Where do you even start to think you’ll get $130 million from?”

Why is the continent so behind?

Global histories of exploitation mean that no African country is as wealthy as the Western nations that developed the vaccines, Abdi said. There are no major vaccine production facilities on the continent and Covax, which is meant to restore equity to the process, is failing to deliver.

Source: Read Full Article