TheCable

John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC), says only 1.19 percent of Africa’s population have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus.

The low rate of vaccination raises concern seeing as the continent is experiencing a third wave of the pandemic.

Speaking at the weekly COVID-19 briefing on Thursday, Nkengasong said 251,000 cases were reported last week, representing a 22 percent average increase compared to the previous week.

“The highest proportion of new cases is from Southern Africa, representing 71 percent of the cases,” he said.

“A total of 5,197 deaths have been recorded since the last briefing and this represents a remarkable increase of 43 percent when you compare the number of deaths last week and this week.

“As a continent, we’ve recorded about 28 percent average increase in number of new cases over the last four weeks. The continent has recorded 28 percent average increase in new deaths

“As of today, the continent as conducted 54,174,000 tests, and this represents an increase of 1.3 million new tests compared to last week and that is about 2 percent average increase.

“23 countries are now reporting the third wave, and 13 of those countries are recording a more severe third wave.

“As of July 5, a total of 70.4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been procured by 52 member states in the continent. Total doses consumed so far is 53.3 million and it represents about 75 percent of total. If you now look at those who are fully vaccinated, then our percentage coverage stands at 1.19 percent of the population. It is too low for us and at this point in the pandemic.”

Experts have attributed the sudden rise in cases to the the highly contagious Delta variant, which has been detected in 15 African countries so far.

The number of cases has risen for seven consecutive weeks since the third wave began in May.