Africa: Delta variant spreading as vaccine coverage remains low

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AA) – The Delta variant of COVID-19 continues to spread across Africa, as vaccination coverage on the continent remains low, said John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

In a weekly press briefing on Thursday, Nkengasong said 21 of Africa’s 54 countries have now reported the highly infectious COVID-19 variant, making the continent of 1.3 billion people even more vulnerable to the spread of the virus.

Africa is currently experiencing a third wave of the virus, said Nkengasong.

An update by the Africa CDC said 89.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have so far been supplied to Africa, and 65 million (72.75%) have been administered.

The continent has an estimated population of 1.34 billion, according to the Statistics Times website.

Matshisido Moeti, the World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Africa, said 60 million doses of vaccines will be delivered to Africa “between now and September.”

The African continent has so far done some 58.9 million COVID-19 tests.

The number of cases recorded across the continent stands at 6.63 million and counting, while 168,478 people have succumbed to the virus.

The number of recoveries now stands at over 5.8 million.