The 270-million Covid-19 vaccines provisionally secured through the African Vaccine Acquisition Task team (Avatt) will be allocated to countries based on a formula that considers their population size and the extent of their epidemics, according to the director of the Africa Centre for Disease Control, John Nkengasong.
Avatt was established last August by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his capacity as chair of the African Union. It announced late on Wednesday evening that it had secured a provisional 270-million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, with at least 50-million doses to be made available in the second quarter of 2021. This period is crucial, as most of the vaccines from the international Covid-19 vaccine financing initiative Covax earmarked for African countries are only expected in the second half of the year, he said.
Avatt’s initiative is intended to complement Covax, which has promised 600-million doses to Africa by the end of 2021, enough to vaccinate approximately 20% of the continent’s population.
“270-million doses is definitely not enough for the African continent, but it is a good place to start,” said Nkengasong.
African countries would have a period of time in which to take up their allocations. If they did not do so, their tranche would be made available to other countries, he said.
Nkengasong did not provide details of the specific allocations for different countries, but said this information would be made publicly available within a matter of days.
“We will use the same approach that was used through the African Medical Supplies Platform when we had a shortage of diagnostics. This we did totally transparently,” he said. The platform is an online marketplace that enables African countries to procure key medical supplies.
The first vaccines secured by Avatt are expected to be supplied by Pfizer, AstraZeneca (through its licensee the Serum Institute of India), and Johnson and Johnson.
Ramaphosa said the African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) would support member states by providing advance procurement commitment guarantees of up to $2bn 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 $5bn either to buy more vaccines or pay for delivery of vaccines committed on their behalf by Afreximbank,” Ramaphosa said in a statement released on Wednesday.
The World Health Organisation’s Africa regional head Matshidiso Moeti said it was “really wonderful” that the AU had secured additional vaccine doses. “Our expectation has been very much to work in complementary fashion,” she said.
The first Covax-procured vaccine should reach Africa by the end of March, with a larger rollout in June, she said. SA would be among the first countries to get Covax vaccines, given the severity of its epidemic, she said.
SA accounts for 41% of the Covid-19 cases confirmed in the African Union to date, or 1.28-million of the total 3.14-million recorded cases as of January 14, according to the African CDC.
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