The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has received a grant from the European Union (EU) to help roll out Covid-19 vaccination in sub-Saharan Africa.
According to UNICEF, the 18-month joint programme will provide training for health workers, shore up logistics and build confidence in vaccine take-up.
The programme, it added, will also support some African countries to vaccinate their whole populations, including the most vulnerable.
Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Nigeria, South Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe are the 12 countries to benefit from this new funding.
‘This new EU humanitarian funding will allow UNICEF to enhance coordination and partnership with governments, Africa CDC, WHO Afro and partners in planning and monitoring of [Covid-19] vaccine rollout, support delivery of vaccines to priority groups through increased health force capacity, increase logistics, cold chain systems and vaccine management, strengthen community engagement for vaccine acceptance and promote demand and provide timely and quality technical support and oversight’, UNICEF noted in a statement.
UNICEF also said that vaccination was a key strategy in the global Covid-19 response but just seven percent of the African population had been fully vaccinated as of 06 December, 2021.
42 countries in Africa missed the global goal of vaccinating the most vulnerable ten percent of every country’s population against Covid-19 by the end of September, data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) shows.
According to the People’s Vaccine Alliance, lack of access to vaccines globally is a factor that created the perfect breeding ground for Omicron and other new Covid-19 variants.
The African Union (AU) had accused vaccine manufacturers of denying African countries a fair chance to buy them, and urged manufacturing countries to lift export restrictions on vaccines and their components.
‘The [Covid-19] pandemic has had a profound impact on communities and children in Africa, taking lives, affecting livelihoods and the ability of governments to provide essential services to children’, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Marie-Pierre Poirier, said.
‘UNICEF welcomes the EU’s support to ensure that populations in the 12 countries, including parents and priority groups such as health workers, teachers and social workers can be vaccinated against [Covid-19], protecting them is key to restore and improve services to children’.
The UN agency noted that the Covid-19 pandemic has been putting immense pressure on already-overburdened health systems in sub-Saharan Africa despite concerted efforts by governments, supported by UNICEF and other partners.
Source: UNICEF
Photo source: Africa CDC
