The World Health Organization issued a warning on Thursday that African governments must get extra 20 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccination within the next six weeks, or millions of individuals would miss their second dosage.
The head of the WHO’s African operations said, “Any pause in our vaccination campaigns will lead to lost lives and lost hope.” So far African countries have received just 43 million vaccine doses for the continent’s 1.2 billion people.
The WHO stressed the need of adhering to the recommended dosage interval of eight to twelve weeks in order to achieve an 81 percent protection rate against COVID.
Furthermore, the WHO stated that additional 200 million doses of any coronavirus vaccine are required in Africa to vaccinate at least 10% of the continent’s population by September.
The COVAX global vaccination effort said on Thursday that it need $2 billion (€1.6 billion) to expand COVID vaccination programs in developing nations.
The WHO and the Gavi alliance conduct COVAX, which aims to give vaccinations to low-income nations.