The African region has an extremely low level of preparedness for a COVID-19 vaccination drive, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday, urging the continent's nations to ramp up their readiness
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th November, 2020) The African region has an extremely low level of preparedness for a COVID-19 vaccination drive, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday, urging the continent's nations to ramp up their readiness.
"Forty [African] countries have updated the [readiness assessment] tool and provided data to WHO. An analysis finds that based on the self-reports by the countries, the African region has an average score of 33% readiness for a COVID-19 vaccine roll-out, which is well below the desired benchmark of 80%," the UN health agency said in a press release published on the ReliefWeb humanitarian information portal.
The WHO African Region's all 47 member states have already received the Vaccine Readiness Assessment Tool for domestic use by health ministries with the support of WHO and UNICEF.
"It provides a roadmap for countries to plan for COVID-19 vaccine introduction and covers 10 key areas: planning and coordination, resources and funding, vaccine regulations, service delivery, training and supervision, monitoring and evaluation, vaccine logistics, vaccine safety and surveillance and communications and community engagement," the WHO statement read.
The WHO and Geneva-based Gavi vaccine alliance have teamed up to provide African countries with accessible and affordable vaccines through the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility that aims to ensure the fair distribution of safe and effective vaccines against the disease.
Since the start of the pandemic, the WHO Regional Office for Africa has registered more than 2.1 million cases of the coronavirus disease on the continent.
According to data published by the WHO, South Africa and Algeria have registered the most number of COVID-19 cases 775,502 and 78,025, respectively.
