Over 70% of African states miss Covid jabs target

Only 14 out of the 54 African countries have met the global target of vaccinating more than 10% of their populations against coronavirus by the end of September, the World Health Organization has said.

That’s largely because Covax, the mechanism set up to distribute vaccine doses to poor nations, has not been able to get enough doses.

Seychelles, Mauritius and Morocco have achieved the highest vaccination rates, all above 40%. The WHO attributes this to their ‘robust vaccination programs, size of the country and their population.

Others who’ve met the global target are Tunisia, Eswatini, Cape verde, Botswana, Comoros, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, Mauritania, Lesotho and Rwanda.

But overall, just 4% of Africans have been fully jabbed, compared with 60% in the European Union.

Covax had planned to deliver nearly 300m doses to Africa, but it’s only been able to procure 72m doses after the richer nations bought up much of the stock.

BBC/Shakirat Sadiq