Africa COVID-19 jab shortfall could take world 'back to square one', says WHO

Africafaces a 470 millionshortfallinCOVID-19 vaccine doses this year after the Covax alliance cut its projected shipments, raising the risk of new and deadly variants, theWHOsaid on Thursday.

Only 17 per cent of the continent's population will now be vaccinated by the end of this year, compared with the 40 percent target set by theWorldHealth Organization.

“The staggering inequity and severe lag in shipments of vaccines threatens to turn areas inAfrica... into breeding grounds for vaccine-resistant variants," said Matshidiso Moeti,WHO'sAfricadirector. "Thiscouldend up sending the wholeworldbacktosquareone," he added.

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Due to global shortages, the Covax alliance set up to ensure equitable delivery of jabs, will ship about 150 million fewer doses of vaccine toAfricathan planned.

“As long as rich countries lock Covax out of the market,Africawill miss its vaccination goals," Moetti said.

The reduction in the vaccination target comes asAfricapasses the eight million mark in infections this week, theWHOsaid.

Meanwhile,South Africa haslaunched the main phase of a global COVID-19 vaccine study on children and teenagers led by Chinese maker Sinovac Biotech, with the first two participants jabbed in Pretoria. The study aims at testing the efficacy of Sinovac's two-dose CoronaVac on 14,000 children, who are aged between six months and 17 years in Chile, Kenya, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South Africa.

"We see a lot of milder and less severe disease in children, but they still remain susceptible," project director Sanet Aspinall told reporters at the event.

She further added, "They are... getting the infection and they are then able to transmit it to the rest of the population."