COVID-19 vaccine: 100 million additional vaccines doses secured for poorer countries

Several international health groups announced on Tuesday, September 29 that they were planning to secure as many as 100 million additional doses to potential COVID-19 vaccine for poorer national in 2021. The announcement nearly doubles the number of vaccine doses already secured by the Gavi vaccine alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Additional vaccine doses secured for poorer countries

There are currently almost a dozen potential vaccines that are in the final phases of testing and the World Bank has already put aside $12 billion to help poor countries to acquire and distribute the vaccine. The World Bank in a statement also added that the world and the global economy will not be able to fully recover until a vaccine is found so that people can return to their normal lives with confidence

The COVID-19 pandemic which saw its first outbreak in a wet market in Wuhan, China last year has now spread all across the world. The virus, named COVID-19 by the World Health Organisation, has infected over 33 million people worldwide with the global death toll crossing 1,000,000. The US has reported more than 7.2 million positive COVID-19 cases and a death toll of over 200,000.

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Nigeria’s President urges UN to ensure COVID-19 vaccine for all

During his address to the United Nations General Assembly via video conference on Wednesday, September 23, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari called for “uninhibited supply of safe and effective coronavirus vaccines for all”. Meanwhile, other African nations have sought the equitable distribution of any COVID-19 vaccine.

The Nigerian President also stated that it the COVID-19 vaccine was not made available to all, especially the poorer nations then the UN would have “failed in its core mission of giving expression, direction and solution to the yearnings of the international community”. Experts have claimed that the African continent will require at least 1.5 billion doses of the vaccine in order to immunize 60 per cent of the continent’s population.

Read: Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari Urges UN To Ensure COVID-19 Vaccine For All

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