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Russia’s Sputnik COVID-19 vaccine makes up small component of Africa’s imports: WHO

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) said that it does not expect an immediate impact on vaccine supply to Africa due to the fighting in Ukraine and that Russia’s Sputnik COVID-19 vaccines were a minimal component of imports to the continent.

Vaccine milestone

In February, Africa reached the milestone of 400 million people being vaccinated.

Last month, the WHO said this is the region’s largest-ever vaccine rollout in a single year. The WHO, however, says Africa remains the continent with the lowest vaccination rates in the world.

Now, the WHO, together with UN Children’s Agency, UNICEF, and the Global Alliance for Vaccine Initiative, Gavi, will roll out mass vaccination campaigns in 10 priority countries to reach 100 million people by the end of April this year.

During its weekly media briefing towards the end of February, the WHO regional office for Africa said so far, only 13% of Africans are fully vaccinated.

Eighteen countries have vaccinated less than 10% of their population and three have vaccinated less than 1%.

Twenty-nine countries have used less than 50% of their vaccine stock.

This is despite a steady supply of vaccines. The dose-sharing facility for poor nations, COVAX, has delivered 680 million doses in the past year.

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