Africa

When babies are born in western Kenya, where malaria is rife, many mothers are sent home from the hospital with one all-important baby gift: a bed net treated with insecticide.

The drive to produce vaccines in Africa is designed to help more developing countries access COVID-19 shots after rich nations bought up most of this year's supply.

World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the same briefing that the continent was being "left behind by the rest of the world" and that this would allow the coronavirus to keep circulating.

Passed by cabinet in October last year, the policy is aimed at regulating the prices of pharmaceutical products with a view to putting an end to pricing malpractices by different players in the industry.

Only 2.48% of the continent has been fully vaccinated as of Aug. 23, according to Our World in Data, far behind other continents.

The new outbreaks show the multitude of challenges governments are fighting in parallel with the COVID-19 pandemic.

South Africa's health regulator approved the J&J shot in April, and it is being used in the national vaccine programme alongside Pfizer's.

Flush with the success of its mRNA Covid-19 vaccine, BioNTech is now gearing up for one of the biggest challenges in vaccine development — which comes without potential profit.

Many African nations rely on global vaccine sharing scheme COVAX or donations from countries like China and India.

Late in the Covid-19 pandemic, a spotlight has been cast on Africa as the continent has lagged behind on vaccine rollouts.

the Cape Town-based firm would ramp up production of the COVID-19 vaccine before reaching output of 100 million doses a year around early 2023.

U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged to share 80 million U.S.-made vaccines with countries around the world to protect the most vulnerable and stem transmission of the coronavirus.

Deaths have climbed steeply for the past five weeks to 6,273 last week, just a percentage point shy of its weekly peak recorded in January.

The Moroccan government will invest $500 million in the build, which will be primary dedicated to African vaccine manufacture.

In early March, the CEO of vaccine alliance Gavi, one of the organisations co-leading COVAX, had said the aim was to supply Africa - whose total population is 1.3 billion - with 720 million doses in 2021.