Last year, we partnered with UNICEF, the African Union, and African celebrities to launch #MythOrVax on TikTok. Our campaign dispelled myths and challenged misinformation on COVID-19, and raised awareness on the importance of COVID-19 vaccinations in Africa.  Now, it’s back for part two. Keep reading to find out more.    Challenging vaccine hesitancy in Africa Africa has made progress in the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines. Countries have educated the public about the safety of COVID vaccines, and the continent is home to a...
Many African countries reacted positively to the recent news that the German biotechnology company BioNTech will be building COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing plants in Rwanda and Senegal. Across the continent, insufficient and unpredictable vaccine supplies, poor distribution networks, and infrastructure challenges have hampered mass vaccination efforts. Proponents of vaccine technology transfer to African countries view this development as a positive step to improve vaccination rollouts across the continent. The pandemic has been a wake-up call for African countries that rely solely on...
Beatrice, a beautician at a spa in Nairobi, first tried to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in June. But all the health facilities she visited turned her away because they had no vaccine doses. All had either not received any supplies or they had run out. Eventually, she received her first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine at a health facility some 50 kilometres outside the city. When it was time to get her second shot, Beatrice was told she might have...
South Africans are furious over re-imposed travel bans after the Omicron variant was detected in South Africa on 24 November. The UK was the first country to announce a red list of countries that citizens were prohibited from travelling to. This list includes South Africa and Botswana – the two African countries with the first confirmed cases of Omicron infections – as well as Angola, Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The US, EU countries, Canada, UAE, Australia, and...
COVID-19 vaccine inequity is set to worsen unless urgent measures are taken to accelerate vaccine production and distribution globally. Most low- and middle-income countries failed to achieve the WHO target of vaccinating at least 10% of their populations by the end of September. Only 15 African countries met the WHO target, with huge variations among this group. For example, 72% of the population in the Seychelles has been vaccinated, compared to just 13% in Rwanda. Rich countries, on the other hand,...
The global response to COVID-19 is not working. So far this year, despite the development and roll out of effective vaccines, more than twice the number of people have died from COVID-19 than in all 2020. More than 8,000 people died each day in the past week. A new target to vaccinate 70% of the population in all country income categories by September 2022 could provide the impetus needed to bring the pandemic under control. But as ONE’s latest analysis...
While rich countries are buying and hoarding COVID-19 vaccines, African countries are facing an uphill battle to obtain vaccines. Many African leaders hoped to secure vaccines from COVAX, the vaccine distribution facility for low-income countries that aims to narrow the global vaccine inequity gap. But some of the countries that contributed vaccines to COVAX are now raiding the very facility that they pledged to support. Rich countries like the UK, Canada, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia have been buying...
COVID-19 cases in Africa hit a record high in July. South Africa had the highest officially recorded COVID-19 infections and deaths, with more than 2.5 million confirmed cases over the course of the pandemic, and over 75,000 deaths. In fact, South Africa accounts for almost 40% of all coronavirus-related deaths on the continent. The blue line refers to South Africa’s total. Visit our Africa Tracker for more data. The blue line refers to South Africa’s total. Visit our Africa Tracker for...
Rasna Warah is a Kenyan writer and journalist who is working with the ONE Campaign’s COVID-19 Aftershocks project. EU countries will issue a COVID-19 vaccine certificate that excludes key vaccines distributed through the COVAX facility – which is financed by many of the same countries – placing Africans at a unique disadvantage. Africans who have expressed concern over the extremely stringent and punitive visa application procedures of EU countries now have to contend with another barrier to their entry to Europe....
Over 1.4 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide. This is an impressive feat less than 15 months since the start of the pandemic — but we’re still a long way from reaching everyone, everywhere. Countries in North America and Europe have raced ahead, with national coverage as high as 40-50% of the population in some countries. But other parts of the world are struggling to protect even their most vulnerable citizens and frontline health workers. At the start...