Sixteen African countries have shown interest in securing Covid-19 vaccines under an AU initiative and the aim is to deliver allocations in the next three weeks, the head of a continental disease control body said on Thursday.
As wealthier nations push ahead with mass immunisation, Africa is seeking to immunise 60% of its 1.3 billion people in the next three years. Only a handful of African nations have begun giving doses.
The AU bloc initially secured 270 million doses from manufacturers for member states, then late last month said it would receive another 400 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
John Nkengasong, director of the AU's Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said the 16 countries had so far placed requests for the vaccines under the bloc's African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (Avatt), which started operation in mid-January.