The African Union has secured a provisional 270 million Covid-19 vaccine doses for its member states, with at least 50 million becoming available between April and June this year, ahead of the critical winter period.
The AU's chairman Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa's president, announced its agreement with three vaccine manufacturers on Wednesday, as coronavirus infections began to surge across the continent.
By mid-week Africa's 54 nations had surpassed 3.1 million confirmed Covid-19 cases, and 75,709 virus-related deaths, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
Although the infection rate in most of Africa to date is considerably less than in most regions, a number of its nations have seen more deadly second waves of the virus emerge in recent weeks.
Intense negotiations
Roughly 30,000 new cases are being recorded across Africa each day, compared to 18,000 during the continent's first wave last year, according to the Africa CDC.
Mr Ramaphosa said the vaccines were secured by the AU following intense negotiations with 10 manufacturers, but Pfizer and AstraZeneca through the Serum Institute of India, and Johnson & Johnson were the preferred suppliers.
Financial arrangements have also been made with the African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) to support AU member states who make firm vaccine orders, by providing advance commitment guarantees of up to $2 billion (€1.64 billion) to the manufacturers.
"There is also close collaboration between the AU team and the World Bank to ensure that member states are able to access about $5 billion, either to buy more vaccines or pay for delivery of vaccines committed on their behalf by Afreximbank, " Mr Ramaphosa said.
On Thursday, Africa CDC director John Nkengasong urged governments to prepare for the vaccines’ rollout, saying they must act fast to organise storage sites, train health workers and create an effective system to record inoculations.
Herd immunity
“There’s absolutely no reason for accelerated preparations not to occur,” he told an online press conference.
While the AU deals have been broadly welcomed across Africa, concerns remain that richer countries will continue to buy up most of the vaccine supply ahead of poorer nations.
Indeed, the number of vaccines the AU secured falls far short of what is needed to inoculate the continent’s 1.3 billion population.
However, the AU's acquisition is in addition to 600 million vaccine doses it had already secured through the Covax initiative, a global effort co-led by the World Health Organisation that aims to ensure fair and equitable access for every country.
To achieve its goal of attaining herd immunity by inoculating 60 per cent of its population – or about 780 million people – the AU must acquire two billion doses, if two are needed per person to make the vaccine effective, says the Africa CDC.
