(3 minutes read)
· Burkina Faso was gifted a shipment of more than 150,000 Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccines doses by the U.S. through the Covax initiative to help speed up vaccination, which is suffering from vaccine shortages like any other African country
· Vaccination levels across Africa are still very low. Less than 2% of the continent’s population of 1.3 billion has received at least one shot
· The U.S. has begun delivering the first batches of 25 million doses of vaccines it is sharing with the African Union
Burkina Faso was gifted a shipment of more than 150,000 Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccines doses by the U.S. through the Covax initiative to help speed up vaccination, which is suffering from vaccine shortages like any other African country.
Vaccination levels across Africa are still very low. Less than 2% of the continent’s population of 1.3 billion has received at least one shot. The U.S. has begun delivering the first batches of 25 million doses of vaccines it is sharing with the African Union. Senegal, Burkina Faso and Gambia are amongst the first nations to get the Janssen jab. Ethiopia and Djibouti are also receiving doses. The effort has delivered only 200 million vaccines globally since February. The U.S. alone has administered more than 338 million doses.
Vaccination in Africa suffered a setback after COVAX’s biggest supplier — the Serum Institute of India — halted exports in March to deal with a massive surge in the subcontinent. The agencies behind COVAX, including the World Health Organization, resorted to plodding rich countries for vaccine donations. The promised doses by various countries will come only by next year. The Group of Seven countries pledged to donate a billion COVID-19 vaccines. That is far short of the 11 billion needed to protect the world, according to the WHO.
