Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

COVID‐19: Elusive Inoculation Deadline

2021; Wiley; Volume: 58; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1467-6346.2021.10285.x

0001-9852

Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology

Elusive Inoculation DeadlineVaccination targets are unlikely to be met in most African countries African governments have a December 31st deadline to inoculate 40% of their populations.The target was announced by the World Health Organisation (WHO), but it is unlikely to be met by 90% of African countries.This is thanks largely to vaccine hesitancy that is fuelled by disinformation and fears over the safety of Covid-19 shots, shortage of doses and feeble government responses to the pandemic.Only a handful of the 54 countries on the continentless than 10%are projected to meet the goal set in May, according to the WHO.Less than 6% of the continent's 1.3bn people are fully inoculated against the virus so far.Seychelles, Mauritius and Morocco have already achieved the 40% goal, according to the WHO.Tunisia and Cabo Verde are expected to follow suit.The continent has received more than 276m Covid-19 vaccine doses from other nations so far, according to the Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) that operates under the African Union (AU).Health experts worry that the slow vaccine roll-out could prolong the virus which has already infected about 8.5m people in Africa and killed nearly 220,000 others.Ironically, hundreds of thousands of vital vaccine doses have gone to waste on a continent that has struggled to get the shots.In all, African countries have so far discarded some 450,000 doses.South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and others have reported that thousands of doses expired after their populations shunned them.