WHO Provides Covid-19 Update, Raises Concerns

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that more Covid-19 waves could be building for Africa as updated forecasts show that the continent may not reach 70 percent vaccine coverage until August 2024.

The UN entity said Africa recently experienced an 83 percent surge in new Covid-19 cases driven by the Delta and the Omicron variants.

However, the WHO noted in the pandemic assessment that despite the uptick in new Covid-19 cases, the continent witnessed fewer deaths than previous surges.

The WHO reported that Africa recorded more than 196,000 new cases for the week ending on 12 December, up from around 107,000 in the previous week, bringing the total cumulative number of recorded cases during the pandemic to 8.9 million.

It noted that although the number of new cases is currently doubling every five days, deaths remain low and even dropped by 19 percent last week, compared with the previous week.

‘There were a little over [three thousand] deaths reported during the first three weeks of the current pandemic wave, which is Africa’s fourth’, WHO said in a statement.

‘About half as many cases were reported in the same time frame during the third wave which was fuelled by the Delta variant.

‘This upsurge in new cases, coupled with low hospitalisations, is particularly marked in South Africa, which has experienced a 66 [percent] rise in new cases during the past seven days compared with the previous seven days.

‘While hospitalisations have increased by 67 [percent] in the past seven days, the bed occupancy rate for Intensive Care Units remains low at 7.5 [percent], with 14 [percent] of the hospitalised patients receiving supplemental oxygen.

‘Though the deaths also remain low, this data should be interpreted with caution as the pattern may change in the coming weeks’.

WHO noted that only 20 African countries had vaccinated at least ten percent of their population and only six countries have hit the year-end target of fully vaccinating 40 percent of their population as set by the global health body.

The apex health agency said only Mauritius and Seychelles had reached the 70 percent coverage essential for controlling the pandemic.

The WHO data shows that 53 African countries have initiated vaccination programmes, administering a total of 264 million doses (or 61 percent of doses received).

According to the WHO Africa Covid-19 readiness dashboard, 28 countries have engaged provinces and districts in preparations for vaccinations, 32 countries have conducted national training initiatives and 29 countries have trained district vaccinators and volunteers.

Full vaccination of 70 percent of Africans will require about 1.6 billion more doses and strengthened efforts to increasing vaccine demand, according to the UN entity.

‘We are cautiously optimistic that deaths and severe illness will remain low in the current wave, but slow vaccine rollout in Africa means both will be much higher than they should be’, the statement quoted the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, as saying.

‘We have known for quite some time now that new variants like Beta, Delta or Omicron could regularly emerge to spark new outbreaks globally, but vaccine-deprived regions like Africa will be especially vulnerable.

WHO said Africa’s vaccine challenges were being compounded by Omicron-related travel bans and called for travel bans targeting African countries to be rescinded.

Source: WHO

Photo source: WHO

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