In Africa, only 6% of the population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. |
This is compared to over 70% of high-income countries where 40% of the population has been vaccinated.
The company announced a deal that could help significantly expand access to the Covid-19 treatment, but the agreement excludes a number of countries hit hard by the pandemic.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa reached 8,560,266 as of Monday evening, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.
On 26 November 2021, WHO designated the variant B.1.1.529 a variant of concern, named Omicron, on the advice of WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE).
The emergence of the threatening new Omicron variant shows how important it is for the world to end the current “cycle of panic and neglect”
UN warns travel bans are hindering the sharing of samples from South Africa that could shed light on the new variant
Heavily mutated Omicron is rapidly becoming the dominant variant of the coronavirus in South Africa less than four weeks after it was first detected there |
Brazzaville, 2 December 2021 – African countries are stepping up measures to detect and control the spread of the Omicron variant as weekly new COVID-19 cases in the continent rise by 54% due to an upsurge in southern Africa.
The Omicron variant appears able to get around some immunity but vaccines should still offer protection against severe disease, according to the latest data from South Africa where it is fast overtaking Delta to become the dominant variant.
Extreme poverty in Western Africa increased by nearly 3 percent last year, according to a new report on the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 published today by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).