By Aluta News
July 1, 2021
In the fight against the Coronavirus, the European Union(EU) must do more to address global injustices in vaccine distribution, the African Union (AU) has said on Thursday.
“The fact of the matter is that the EU has vaccine factories, it has vaccine production centres across Europe; Not a single dose, not one vial has left a European factory for Africa,’’ AU Coronavirus Special Envoy Strive Masiyiwa said.
Instead the EU refered Africa to India, he said.
“There are so many people vaccinated that they can watch football without masks now.
Now it’s the time for Europe to open up production facilities. We need those European factories, we don’t ask for a donation,’’ Masiyiwa demanded.
Africa urgently needs COVID-19 vaccines as, of the 700 million doses planned for this year, only 65 million are on the continent.
Hope is offered by the start of production. Starting in August, a pharmaceutical company in South Africa would produce a total of 400 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine within a year and deliver them on the continent and to Caribbean countries.
“We have learned a lesson over the last year, that we can’t rely on others to ensure the vaccination security on the continent,’’ said John Nkengasong of the pan-African health organisation Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In total, about 5.5 million infections have been documented in Africa so far.
According to experts, the number of unreported cases is probably higher on the continent with its 1.3 billion people.
However, the total number was low compared to other regions of the world: Africa accounted for 3 per cent of all global cases of infection and has carried out 52 million tests and nearly 50 million vaccinations.
The CDC was trying to pool the resources of African countries and coordinate measures in the fight against the pandemic.
dpa/NAN