Africa is worried about a vaccine shortage because India is facing the second wave of the deadly coronavirus. India has to first meet with its own country needs. India is known as the ‘pharmacy of the world’ as it is now the biggest supplier of Astrazeneca vaccine under the Covax programme.
The country has recorded 22 million cases out of a population of 1.3 billion because of a new variant introduced. They have sent more than 60 million doses overseas and are now delaying all the supplies as they have to provide these to their own people.
African Union (AU) is saying that they were kind of hoping for a continuous supply of vaccines but now what is happening in India is horrifying them and realised that there will be no shipment soon. Africa has been relatively spared the worst of the pandemic so far, with just over 124,000 deaths officially recorded for 4.6 million cases.
Data source: African Union and news agencies