FILE - In this May 25, 2021, file photo, a health worker prepares a dose of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine at the Orange Farm Clinic near Johannesburg. In the global race to vaccinate people against COVID-19, Africa is tragically at the back of the pack. A man is turned away by a guard after he tried to get the Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine at a health facility in Harare, Zimbabwe, Tuesday, June, 8, 2021.
FILE - In this June 3, 2021, file photo, an elderly woman leaves as otheres wait to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, at a clinic at Orange Farm, near Johannesburg. In the global race to vaccinate people against COVID-19, Africa is tragically at the back of the pack. CAPE TOWN, South Africa — In the global race to vaccinate people against COVID-19, Africa is tragically at the back of the pack.
The World Health Organization says the continent of 1.3 billion people is facing a severe shortage of vaccine at the same time a new wave of infections is rising across Africa. Vaccine shipments into Africa have ground to a “near halt,” WHO said last week. In an interview, Nkengasong called on the leaders of wealthy nations meeting this week at the G-7 summit to share spare vaccines — something the United States has already agreed to do — and avert a “moral catastrophe.”
Uganda just released a batch of 3,000 vaccine doses in the capital, Kampala — a minuscule amount for a city of 2 million — to keep its program barely alive.