NAIROBI, Kenya – The World Health Organization Africa Director, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, criticized the decisions of some rich countries to start administering booster shots for the coronavirus, saying the decisions are “a mockery of vaccine equality” as the African continent still struggles to get vaccine supplies.
African countries lag far behind other continents in vaccinations, with only 2 percent of the continent’s 1.3 billion people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 so far. Although vaccine shipments have accelerated in recent weeks, African countries are still far from getting enough to meet their needs, said Dr. Muti.
Rather than offering extra doses to their already fully vaccinated citizens, she said, rich countries should give priority to poor countries, some of which are ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Movements by some countries around the world to introduce booster shots threaten the promise of a brighter future for Africa,” said Dr. Moeti at an online press conference on Thursday. “Since some wealthier countries hoard vaccines, they make a mockery of vaccine equality.”
The World Health Organization has called for a moratorium on booster shots until the end of September to free up vaccine stocks for low-income countries. But several rich countries have said they wouldn’t wait that long. In the United States, the Biden administration said on Wednesday it would provide booster shots to most Americans starting September 20. more than a million inhabitants.
President Biden said in a televised interview on Thursday that he and his wife, Jill Biden, plan to do booster shots of their own, assuming federal regulators give the green light.
Biden defended offering an extra shot to Americans as many countries struggled to deliver the first doses to their populations.
“We offer the rest of the world more than the rest of the world combined,” Biden said in the interview on ABC. “We are keeping our part of the bargain.”
According to the WHO, Africa has so far reported more than 7.3 million cases and 184,000 deaths from the coronavirus. .
Health experts say the more contagious Delta variant, first discovered in India, is responsible for most of the current spread on the continent. “While it took Alpha eight months to spread to 30 countries, Delta has done it in half that time — just four months,” said Dr. Moeti, as he compared Delta to a variant first discovered in Britain.
Several African countries are also dealing with outbreaks of other diseases. This week, Côte d’Ivoire confirmed its first Ebola case in nearly 30 years. Guinea reported a case of the Marburg virus, the first ever found in West Africa. Uganda, which has just come out of a 42-day coronavirus lockdown, announced a polio outbreak.
dr. Moeti urged rich countries to “rethink the idea of boosters” because of the danger that more dangerous variants will develop if the virus spreads in unvaccinated populations.
“If the most at-risk groups in all countries are not vaccinated, it will lead to unnecessary deaths,” she said. “We say this every week, and it can’t be repeated enough.”
Michael D. Shear reporting contributed.
