health security for them. “Vaccinating one’s own population for industrialized countries does not guarantee them any sanitary security,” he said. “It is evident that if we continue the current trend where Africans will be satisfied with 2% of vaccinated people, it will lead to extremely resistant variants on the continent that will completely question the effectiveness of vaccines in a few months, or a few years.”
Accordingly, French President Emmanuel Macron called for a “very strong initiative to massively produce vaccines in Africa”, with funding from the World Bank. However, the French leader noted that given the amount of time required to launch these production, a short term solution is needed to expand the vaccination campaigns in African nations. Therefore, the participants of the summit agreed to push for an increase in the COVAX target of vaccinating 20 per cent of the African population to 40 per cent.
The COVAX initiative, supported by the WHO and a group of international vaccine advocacy groups, aims to accelerate the development and manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines, and to guarantee fair and equitable access for every country in the world. So far, more than 170 countries have signed up for the initiative, which has funded the vaccine supply for nearly 100 low and middle-income countries so far.
