U.S. Gives Central African Nations COVID Vaccine Donations Through COVAX

By ADF On Aug 10, 2021

A shipment of COVID-19 vaccines donated from the U.S. is unloaded in the Central African Republic on July 22. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

ADF STAFF

The United States has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with recent donations of vaccines to Central African countries through COVAX and the African Union.

On July 21 and 22, vaccine doses donated from the U.S.’s supply landed at airports in Cameroon and the Central African Republic, respectively.

“Vaccines save lives. We are proud to help Cameroon, our friend and partner, with this donation,” said Mary Daschbach, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy. “Health of Cameroonians is one of the top priorities for U.S. foreign assistance in Cameroon.

“U.S. public health experts have worked hand-in-hand with Cameroonian officials since the start of the pandemic to protect public health and strengthen the response to COVID-19.”

The U.S. donated 303,050 doses of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine to Cameroon as part of a pledge to initially provide at least 25 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to the AU with a goal of vaccinating at least 60% of the African population.

U.S. Ambassador Lucy Tamlyn stands with a Central African Republic official awaiting a shipment of COVID-19 vaccines donated from the U.S. on July 22. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

On July 22, the Central African Republic received U.S. donations of 302,400 single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

“This donation will help protect the Central African people from the ravages of the COVID-19 virus,” U.S. Ambassador Lucy Tamlyn said in a statement. “The United States is proud to be the largest donor to the COVAX global COVID-19 initiative, and we are honored to work with our partners at the African Union, UNICEF and the World Health Organization to make this ambitious goal a reality for hundreds of thousands of Central Africans.”

With U.S. donations already arriving in Africa, Rwandan President Paul Kagame praised the efforts.

“It is a good sign that the United States is preparing to join with partners, through the U.S. Development Finance Corporation and other agencies, to support local manufacturing of vaccines and other pharmaceuticals,” he said during a virtual summit of African and U.S. leaders on July 28.

Rwanda received 247,000 doses of AstraZeneca on May 28 through COVAX. One of the first nations in Africa to begin its vaccine campaign, Rwanda quickly administered more than 350,000 doses after receiving its first COVAX shipment on March 3.

“We will immediately start administration of second doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine,” Minister of Health Dr. Daniel Ngamije said to the media in the capital, Kigali, on May 28. “We continue discussions [and] talks with a variety of stakeholders on getting more vaccines so that we can vaccinate as many Rwandans as we can, in order to defeat this pandemic.”

The U.S. has donated $2 billion to Gavi, the vaccine alliance, in support of COVAX and pledged another $2 billion in 2022.

Cameroonian officials stand in front of a shipment of COVID-19 vaccines donated from the U.S. on July 21. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

The U.S. Army recently agreed to a $3.5 billion contract with Pfizer for 500 million doses that will be donated by the end of 2022 to 100 low-income countries around the world, including most of Africa. Shipping is expected to begin by the end of August.

“This is just the beginning. We’re going to continue to share doses,” Gayle Smith, State Department coordinator for Global COVID-19 Response and Health Security, said during a July 21 media briefing. “We are pressing other countries to do more, whether through financial contributions to COVAX or sharing their own doses to bring those online as quickly as possible, and we have Pfizer and AU doses coming on in August. So we are expecting — but we’re all going to have to work at this — an increasingly regular supply.

“We want to see Africa defeat this pandemic. We want to see Africa be resilient and to thrive.”

Other donations via COVAX in Central Africa:

Angola received 100,620 doses of Pfizer on June 1, giving it a total of 724,620 doses through COVAX.
Burundi, one of three holdouts in the world, changed course and announced July 28 that it will now accept COVAX vaccines.
Chad received its first shipment June 23 of 100,620 doses of Pfizer.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo received 1.7 million doses of AstraZeneca on March 2 but only administered about 100,000 to its population of more than 87 million. Due to infrastructure issues and vaccine hesitancy, the government donated 1.3 million of its COVAX doses to other African countries after determining the shots would not be used before expiring. The DRC has requested another 5 million vaccine doses from COVAX with the first shots expected to arrive at the end of August.
Equatorial Guinea received its first shipment April 11 of 194,400 doses of AstraZeneca.
São Tomé and Príncipe received its first shipment March 3 of 24,000 doses of AstraZeneca.