Africa UN Knowledge Hub for COVID-19

The advent of vaccines has been one of the greatest achievements in modern medicine, eradicating and controlling several life-threatening diseases that were once widespread.

The Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative, a historic $1.5 billion partnership between Mastercard Foundation and the Africa CDC, has achieved significant milestones two years after its launch in June 2021. As of June 2023, the initiative has administered over 32 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, contributing to the full vaccination of 52 percent target population in Africa.

As Covid-19 continues to spread, giving rise to new variants, South Africans are still disseminating misinformation and expressing doubts about the Covid-19 vaccine.

With only 7766 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 125 deaths, Sierra Leone’s achievements in the face of the global pandemic have their roots in the harsh lessons delivered by the Ebola outbreak of 2014–2016, which took 4000 lives.

On 16 March 2020, Liberia registered its first case of COVID-19. Like other countries, it grappled with the pandemic, prompting the government to implement various strategies to respond and contain the outbreak.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a new COVID-19 variant which it says is likely to cause a spike in infections, but not increased severity.