Covid‐19 Responses in Africa

Abstract

Algeria: Algeria decided to impose further restrictions to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic on July 25th. The president has ordered awareness and vaccination campaigns, especially in densely populated provinces, with an "immediate goal" of inoculating some 2.5m people in the capital Algiers and 50% of the population in the province of Oran, Constantine, Steif and Ouargala. (BBC Monitoring 25/7) El Khabar reported that Algeria received 2.4mi doses of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine on July 23rd. Algeria reported the highest single daily rise in coronavirus infections on July 23rd with 1,350 Covid‐19 cases detected over the previous 24 hours. (El Khabar 24/7) Burundi: After being hit by a record number of infections of coronavirus, Burundi, one of the last countries in the world to start inoculating its population against Covid‐19, said it has agreed to take Covax vaccines ‐ but with a condition. Health Minister Thaddee Ndikumana announced on July 29th that Burundi would accept Covax vaccines offered by the World Bank but would refuse to sign a waiver he said was demanded by pharmaceutical companies. He insisted that by signing the form he would commit the government to compensating victims of "undesirable" side effects from the jabs. Until now, the government had refused to be part of the Covax initiative, saying it did not want vaccines that were still "at the experimental stage". (©AFP 29/7 2021) Ghana: President Akufo‐Addo said on July 26th that so far 1,271,393 vaccines had been administered with 865,422 persons having received a single jab, and 405,971 having their full two jabs. Ghana was expecting, through the Covax facility and the African Union, 1,229,670 doses of the Pfizer vaccines from the US, and 249,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from the United Kingdom. The president added that the government would inject seed funding of some US$25m in 2021 into developing the country's capacity to produce vaccines locally. (PANA, Accra 26/7) Kenya: Kenya said on July 30th it was extending a night‐time curfew and banning public gatherings to slow the spread of Covid‐19, warning that hospitals were becoming overwhelmed. The country has recently witnessed a jump in cases from the Delta variant. Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe said the rate was at risk of rising further unless serious measures were taken. Kenya has been under some form of curfew since March 2020 when the pandemic first hit, and Kagwe said it will be extended nationwide from 10 pm to 4 am until further notice. In total, Kenya has recorded more than 200,000 cases and 3,910 deaths. The rollout of vaccines has been slow in Kenya, partly due to the lack of supply. As of July 29th, only 1.7m doses had been administered in the country of 52m people. (©AFP 30/7 2021) Morocco: By July 20th the country had inoculated 11,555,970 people with their first dose of a vaccine against Covid‐19, while 9,736,641 people had received both doses, according to local media. The country has also expanded its vaccination programme to the 30‐35 age group. Morocco aims to immunise more than 30m of its total population of 36.9m. (BBC Monitoring 20/7) South Africa: Health officials temporarily halted Covid‐19 vaccinations in areas affected by ongoing unrest and looting, News24 website reported. The public was also warned not to buy medicine from anyone other than registered medical practitioners, after several pharmacies and medical centres were looted. South Africa has recorded the highest number of coronavirus infections in the continent with 2,206,781 cases. Over 64,000 patients have succumbed to the virus. (News 24 website 13/7) Tanzania: The new president launched a coronavirus vaccination drive on July 28th in one of the last countries in the world to start inoculating its people, reversing the policies of its deeply Covid‐sceptic late leader. The East African nation had until recently been an outlier in the global fight to tackle the coronavirus ‐ resisting measures such as wearing masks, curfews and lockdowns. Former president John Magufuli was one of a handful of leaders who dismissed the gravity of the pandemic and shunned foreign‐made vaccines in favour of the healing power of prayer. But since Magufuli's death in March, his successor President Samia Suluhu Hassan has been promoting measures to curb the spread of the virus in the country of 58m people. The mass vaccine rollout started with Hassan, 61, getting her jab after a ceremony broadcast live on television in the financial capital Dar es Salaam. Tanzania will give priority to special groups of frontline workers, the elderly and those with underlying diseases. It received just over one million single‐shot Johnson & Johnson vaccines from Covax, the global initiative that seeks to provide equitable access to doses for lower‐income countries. Plans are also under way to procure doses from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and Chinese vaccine makers Sinovac and Sinopharm, the government said. (©AFP 28/7 2021)