Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, will not be receiving the Pfizer and BioNTech approved COVID-19 vaccines due to its inability to meet the standard requirement of storing the vaccines.
Nigeria had said it would receive about 100,000 of the vaccines before the end of February.
The Regional Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Matshidiso Moeti, while speaking at a press briefing on COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Africa, on Thursday, said only four out of 13 interested African countries were shortlisted to receive the vaccines through COVAX, a co-financing public-private facility.
Ms Moeti said the countries are Cabo Verde, Rwanda, South Africa & Tunisia. They were picked following evaluations by a multi-agency committee based on current mortality rates, new cases and trends, and the capacity to handle the ultra-cold chain needs of the vaccine.
“In addition, around 320,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have been allocated to four African countries: Cabo Verde, Rwanda, South Africa & Tunisia,” Ms Moeti said.
“Deliveries are also expected later in February.”
She, however, said countries that failed to make the Pfizer list could get the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine later in the month.
“Nearly 90 million of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine could start arriving on the continent later this month. This is subject to the WHO listing the vaccine for emergency use,” Ms Moeti said.