Africa will get 220m covid-19 vaccine doses once approved –WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed that Africa will get at least 220 million initial doses once the vaccine for the novel Covid-19 disease has been officially approved.

This was revealed on Thursday by WHO Africa Program Area Manager Richard Mihigo who informed that the first batch will prioritise front-line healthcare workers and vulnerable groups.

He said distribution will be based on the population of each country and also added that all 54 African countries with a population of more than 1.3 billion people had expressed interest in a Covid-19 vaccine.

According to reports, the global vaccine initiative, called COVAX, intends to help purchase and fairly distribute 2 billion doses of approved vaccines by the end of 2021.

This came after the government of the United States of America stated that it will not work with an international cooperative effort to develop and distribute a COVID-19 vaccine.

The US in a statement issued on Tuesday by White House spokesman Judd Deere said that the US will not join global effort to find vaccine for the virus because it does not want to be constrained by multilateral groups like the World Health Organization (WHO).