Washington DC, US
Reuters
President Joe Biden told visiting Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday that the United States will make a one-time donation of more than 17 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to the African Union, the White House said.
“We are hopeful this donation will help AU countries build vaccination programs and get shots into arms,” the White House said in a statement.
A nurse administers the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine to a man at the Bissil Health Centre within Iibissil settlement, Matapato North of Kajiado county, Kenya, on 23rd August. PICTURE: Reuters/Thomas Mukoya
The meeting with Kenyatta at the White House marked Biden’s first as president with an African leader. Kenya holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council this month. The United States and Kenya have long cooperated on economic and security initiatives including counterterrorism.
The White House said the donation of the vaccine doses will help the African Union’s own regional procurement of J&J via the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust.
The African Union, which has 55 member states and a combined population of over 1.3 billion people, has accused vaccine manufacturers of not giving its members fair access. Of 5.7 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines administered around the world by mid-September, only two per cent had been in Africa.
The 17 million doses are on top of the 50 million the United States has already donated to the African Union. The 17 million doses of J&J are available for delivery immediately and will be delivered to the African Union in the coming weeks, the White House said.
African countries and the World Health Organization have been urging drugmakers for months to set up vaccine plants on the continent to help it secure supplies of COVID-19 shots that have been hoovered up by wealthier nations.
As of last week, only about 4.5 per cent of Africans had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the continent’s top public health official John Nkengasong.
Meanwhile, Nigeria has received 501,600 doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine from the French Government through the COVAX vaccine-sharing facility, a senior health official said on Thursday.
Faisal Shuaib, head of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, said the country also received 434,400 doses of Johnson and Johnson vaccine from the African Union.
Both supplies were received last week, Shuaib said, adding that more were expected through the COVAX facility and the African Union.
The COVAX facility, backed by the World Health Organization and the GAVI vaccine alliance, aims to secure billions of doses for lower-income countries by the end of 2021.
About 2.3 per cent of Nigerians or 2.54 million people have been fully vaccinated as of Thursday, while 4.7 per cent of the population have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, Shuaib said.
“With more vaccines arriving in the country, it is my fervent hope that more people will turn up…so that Nigeria can rapidly progress towards attaining herd immunity,” Shuaib said.
From 1st December, Nigerian civil servants will be require to show proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative test for the disease to gain access to their offices, a presidential committee has said.
Nigeria, which has not tested widely for COVID-19, has so far recorded 208,404 confirmed infections and 2,761 deaths from the virus.
