ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia
Russia has donated 300 million doses of the Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccines to the African Union. The vaccines were donated through the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) set up earlier by the AU. This adds to the 270 million doses that the entity had previously secured from AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.
According to a
statement released Friday, all the vaccines booked are to be taken by countries
in the first allocation phase through the online pre-ordering African Medical
Supplies Platform (AMSP). Russia has also provided a financial package for
countries wishing to purchase the vaccine.
“We are grateful to
receive the Sputnik V vaccines from the Russian Federation and tremendously
proud to be able to offer them on the AMSP for our AU member states,” said Dr
John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and
Prevention (Africa CDC). He said that the offer will be available to countries
by May.
The new doses, the
statement notes, are accessible to the 55 AU member countries who will apply
online using national access codes issued to the ministries of Finance and
Health at the start of the pre-order process which was unveiled last month.
Guinea became the first country to benefit with about 400,000 doses set to
receive the vaccines next week.
The move by African
countries to access vaccines in the middle of the pandemic has been referred to
as historical by the AU special envoy Strive Masiyiwa.
“These are historical
times. For the first time in history, Africa has secured access to millions of
vaccine doses in the middle of a pandemic as most of the Western countries”, he
said in an earlier statement.
He however adds that
there’s still a huge shortage of doses, a reason they came up with a
continental collaboration to guarantee fair allocation and timely access when
the drugs become available. Africa has a total population of about 1.2 billion
people.
Meanwhile, through the
COVAX facility, Africa has been planned to get 90 million doses in the first
phase of vaccinations with the so far approved vaccines for emergency use of
AstraZeneca and the Pfizer/BioNTech by the World Health Organization.
The Sputnik V vaccines
are not yet approved by WHO although many countries including Uganda have been
in talks with Russia for possible partnerships to access the drug. - Africa
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