The African Development Bank (AfDB) has revealed its plan to invest $3 billion to support Africa’s covid-19 vaccines manufacturing capacity.
The President of the AfDB, Akinwumi Adesina, disclosed this at the 35th African Union Summit, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
According to Adesina, the funds will ensure that the continent’s 1.4 billion people gain greater access to quality healthcare.
He stated that the continent still needs $484 billion over the next three years to address the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and support economic recovery of Africans but that the most important lesson of the pandemic for Africa is the need to build a defense mechanism against external shocks, when it comes to healthcare and financial security.
According to data collected by Bloomberg, more than 10.2 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered across 184 countries.
In total, 130 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been given for every 100 people around the world—but the vaccine distribution has been unbalanced as regions with the highest incomes are getting vaccinated more than 10 times faster than those with the lowest.
In Africa, only 21 out of 54 countries have vaccinated at least 10 percent of its population.
“About 16 Africa countries have vaccinated less than five per cent and three countries have fully vaccinated less than two per cent,” the World Health Organisation (WHO), Regional Director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti. said at a recent conference.
According to WHO, as of February 3, 2022, Africa had received more than 587 million COVID-19 vaccine doses.
Adesina, during the summit, added that Africa also needs $600 million to $1.3 billion to meet its goal of attaining 60 percent vaccine production by 2040.
He said while developed countries have moved to booster shots, “Africa is still struggling with basic shots”.
 has revealed its plan to invest $3 billion to support Africa’s covid-19 vaccines manufacturing capacity.){kind=link}