WHO: COVID-19 vaccination triples in Africa but still low

The Africa director of the World Health Organization says the continent was able to triple its COVID-19 vaccination rate over the past week, helped by growing numbers of donations of doses from developed countries

LAGOS, Nigeria -- COVID-19 vaccinations in Africa tripled over the past week, though protecting even 10% of the continent by the end of September remains “a very daunting task," the Africa director of the World Health Organization said Thursday. Meanwhile, the continent saw 248,000 new confirmed cases over the past week, with at least 28 countries seeing a surge in infections driven by the delta variant. "This is a preventable tragedy if African countries can get fair access to the vaccines,” Matshidiso Moeti told reporters. The WHO Africa director said 13 million doses were administered in the past week, three times more than the number of shots given in the previous week as donations of doses increased from developed countries. But that remains a drop in an ocean on the continent home to 1.3 billion people, where the Africa CDC says only 2.4% are currently vaccinated.