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During the coronavirus epidemics, Tunisian municipality officials were spotted transporting the casket of a COVID-19 victim to the regional hospital. SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images | Jdidi Wassim The World Health Organization said Thursday that Africa, where less than 2% of the population is vaccinated against Covid-19, witnessed its biggest rise of cases since the epidemic began last week. During the week ending July 4, the second-largest continent registered more than 251,000 new Covid cases, a 20 percent increase over the previous week and a 12 percent increase over the January peak. According to a BBC study of Johns Hopkins University data, active cases in Africa recently topped 642,000, surpassing a second-wave peak of 528,000 active cases in January. “Africa has just experienced its most dangerous pandemic week in history. But the worst is yet to come, as the fast-moving third wave picks up speed and gains fresh territory “WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, stated. “The end of this rapid climb is yet a few weeks away. Cases are already doubling every 18 days, up from every 21 days just a week ago.” On June 20, 2021, a security guard takes a man’s temperature at the entrance of a market in Kampala, Uganda. Getty Images | Nicholas Kajoba | Xinhua News Agency New cases have been reported in over sixteen African nations, including Malawi and Senegal. In at least 10 of those countries, the more transmissible delta variation has been discovered. According to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, Zambia, Rwanda, and Tunisia are among the countries with the highest rates of infection. In recent weeks, hospitalizations have soared by more than 40% across the continent. “Alarm bells should be ringing,” says Dr. Tom Kenyon, Project HOPE’s chief health officer and former head of the CDC’s Center for Global Health. According to him, Africa’s pace of new cases will soon overtake Asia. “Given the horrors we’ve just witnessed in India, this should be cause for concern and action.” He predicted that the Covid crisis in Africa “could get worse than anywhere else we’ve seen.” After the delta strain put the country back into lockdown on June 28, South Africa is now dealing with a deadly third wave of illnesses. A curfew of 9 p.m. local time is currently in effect throughout the country, with less than 1% of the population vaccinated against Covid. Due to a sluggish international vaccine rollout that has left impoverished countries waiting for life-saving doses, less than 2% of the continent’s population has been vaccinated. The 50 million doses given in Africa account for only 1.6 percent of all doses given worldwide. On Tuesday, July 6, 2021, a resident at Mbagathi Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, receives a dosage of the AstraZeneca Plc Covid-19 vaccination. Getty Images | Bloomberg | Patrick Meinhardt “Vaccine nationalism, in which a few countries have gotten the lion’s share of the vaccines, is morally unacceptable and an unproductive public health approach,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference on Wednesday. Ghebreyesus also blamed a “wave of mortality” in sections of the world, notably Africa, on a lack of vaccine equity. After months of delays, vaccine deliveries through Covax, a global campaign to guarantee equal access to Covid vaccines, are now taking up. More than 1.6 million vaccine doses have been given to Africa as part of the effort, with more than 20 million doses of Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer vaccines on the way. Vaccines will also be donated in big quantities to Africa by Norway and Sweden. “Some vaccine delivery are expected in August,” said Kenyon, who previously served as the CDC’s country director in Botswana, Namibia, and Ethiopia. “A vaccine supply must be combined with a skilled personnel and distribution methods to be successful.” In total, 66 million doses have been provided to Africa, with 40 million doses obtained through bilateral agreements, 25 million via COVAX, and 800,000 doses obtained through the African Union African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team. “With considerably larger COVID-19 vaccine delivery coming in July and August, African countries must take advantage of this time to prepare for a quick expansion of the roll-out,” Moeti added. According to data from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 332 million injections have been provided to 55 percent of the country’s population. Workers from Roofing Rolling Mills load oxygen tanks onto a vehicle to be supplied free of charge to several Ugandan hospitals on June 29, 2021, at their facility in Namanve, Wakiso, Uganda. Getty Images | Badru Katumba | AFP/nRead More

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