Story at a glance
- The director of Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said he believes the continent will have 70 percent of its population vaccinated by the end of 2022.
- Currently, only about 11 percent of the African continent has been fully vaccinated.
- Vaccine hesitancy has been a problem, with any publicized issues about vaccine delivery or expiration fueling the hesitancy.
Africa has been struggling to get its population of about 1 billion vaccinated against COVID-19, with some regions having vaccination rates in the single digits. But the continent’s top health agency said by the end of 2022 at least 70 percent of Africans will be vaccinated.
The head of Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday that it has experienced a surge in vaccinations in countries like Nigeria, as vaccine hesitancy wanes along with an increased availability of vaccines, according to The Associated Press (AP).
“If those trends we have seen across several countries are maintained, then we remain hopeful that we should be going to that target,” said John Nkengasong, Africa CDC director.
According to the Africa CDC vaccine dashboard, about 16 percent of Africa’s population has been partially vaccinated and about 11 percent have been fully vaccinated. Morocco currently has the highest vaccination rate in the continent, at about 62 percent, while other areas like South Africa are at about 28 percent.
In regions like Nigeria, only about 2 percent of the population has been vaccinated.
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On Thursday, Nkengasong noted that, “each time there is noise about a vaccine, like expiration or things like AstraZeneca vaccines not arriving on time, it creates some sort of hesitation,” according to the AP.
Just a week ago, Nkengasong announced during a briefing that at least 2.8 billion doses of donated COVID-19 vaccines had expired, citing the shots’ short shelf life. However, the supply only accounted for about 0.5 percent of the total number of vaccines donated to Africa.
Despite that news, Nkengasong remained confident that Africans are prepared to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, citing studies conducted by the Africa CDC that “point to the fact that on average, about 80% of the population of countries that have been studied are ready to receive the vaccines.”
So far, about 64 percent of Africa’s vaccine supply has been administered.
Earlier this week, Africa CDC also announced a partnership with Parsyl, a smart vaccine monitoring service that will allow front line workers to monitor unique temperature requirements of multiple health products, including vaccines.
The partnership will allow Africa CDC to have access to end-to-end monitoring of vaccine quality and waste across the continent.
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