BRUSSELS – The first African countries selected to receive the technology necessary to produce mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 are Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia, a summit meeting of European Union and African Union nations heard on Friday.
The six countries will receive the technology from the World Health Organization’s global mRNA vaccine hub based in South Africa, with the aim to help them start producing vaccines as soon as possible.
In a bid to help poor countries to produce their own vaccine, the World Health Organization last year teamed up with local companies and scientists to replicate the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine.
Africa currently produces just 1% of coronavirus vaccines. According to WHO figures, only 11% of the population in Africa is fully vaccinated, compared with the global average of about 50%.
WHO Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the Brussels summit meeting, according to AP, that although more than 10 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered globally, billions of people still remain unvaccinated.
“The tragedy, of course, is that billions of people are yet to benefit from these life-saving tools,” he said, calling for an urgent increase of local production of shots in poor countries.
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