Covid-19: World Bank Approves $12bn for Vaccinations In Africa 

The World Bank has committed $12bn to African countries to support vaccination programs, the South African Presidency said in a statement on its website on Saturday.

The World Bank money will be in the form of grants or on “highly concessional terms,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in the statement.

The statement follows a January 27 virtual meeting on the Africa Covid-19 vaccine financing and deployment strategy, which was attended by David Malpass, President of the World Bank, according to Bloomberg.

Even in the most devastated Unites States counties, the latest Covid-19 surge is receding, buying authorities time as they attempt to vaccinate about 330 million people.

Ramaphosa had on January 14 said that the African Union had secured a provisional 270 million COVID-19 vaccine doses for its member countries.

Ramaphosa, who chairs the African Union, said the vaccines will be supplied by Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.

He said the doses would be made available in the coming months, adding that at least 50 million doses will be available for the crucial period between April and June 2021.

He further noted that the initiative, which is part of the COVAX programme, aims to make available two billion doses of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines by the end of 2021.

COVAX is one of three pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, which was launched in April by the World Health Organization, the European Commission and France in response to this pandemic.

It brings together governments, global health organisations, scientists and the private sector, with the aim of providing innovative and equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments and vaccines.

Ramaphosa had said, “There is also close collaboration between the AU team and the World Bank to ensure that member states are able to access about $5bn either to buy more vaccines or pay for delivery of vaccines committed on their behalf by Afreximbank.

“These endeavours aim to supplement the COVAX efforts, and to ensure that as many dosages of vaccine as possible become available throughout Africa as soon as possible.”

Although the number of infections in Africa have receded in comparison to other regions, the region is grappling with a second wave of the novel coronavirus.

The virus has infected more than 100,000 people and killed over 1,500 in Nigeria, since the onset of the pandemic, according to Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control