With eight nations reporting a 30 percent increase in cases last week, the WHO has reportedly stated that the continent urgently needs more vaccines.
According to the WHO, the pandemic is currently witnessing an upward trend in 14 countries. Vaccine deliveries to African countries, on the other hand, have reached a standstill.
Africa has supposedly recorded about 5 million cases of Covid-19 and over 130,000 deaths, accounting for 2.9 percent of world infections and 3.7 percent of mortality respectively, claim official sources. However, numerous experts believe, the actual numbers are likely to be several times higher and the official numbers are very significant underestimates.
Many African countries hoped that Covax vaccine-sharing facility supported by the UN would ensure even-handed access worldwide, but it has supposedly failed to do so as wealthy nations purchase all available supplies and Indian producers of the AstraZeneca vaccine preferred tending to local needs as the country dealt with its second wave.
The Covax Facility delivered only 115,000 vaccine doses this week to Burkina Faso, a nation with population of about 20 million people, while Pfizer apparently reached out to Togo and Rwanda each with roughly 100,000 doses.
Infections are also on the rise in other parts in Africa, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with over 32 members of parliament and a handful of advisers to the country’s president, Félix Tshisekedi, losing their lives.
Uganda has recorded around 52,935 coronavirus cases, with 383 deaths. The nation apparently recorded a 131 percent week-on-week increase in cases last week, with infection clusters in schools, many cases reported among health workers in isolation centres and ICUs taking up the list.
According to sources, Covid-caused recession has forced 131 million people into the poor category around the world, reversing years of improvement.
Before the pandemic in 2020, an estimated 494 million individuals in Sub-Saharan region of Africa, out of a total population of more than 1.14 billion, were estimated to be poor. According to a research conducted, that number has climbed by 40 million.
Source credits: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/07/third-wave-sweeps-across-africa-as-covid-vaccine-imports-dry-up