By ALICE NACHILEMBE
Zambia has been allocated 8.7million doses of Covid-19 vaccines under a facility being pioneered by the Africa Union.
Zambia’s Ambassador to Ethiopia and Permanent Representative to the African Emmanuel Mwamba announced the development.
He said the initiative is being done under the COVID-19 African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) a platform which has been created to ensure that upto 60% of Africa’s population were vaccinated against the Coronavirus by December 2021.
He said AVATT was created by President Cyril Ramaphosa, Chairperson of the African Union, in November 2020.
Mr Mwamba said AVATT has been mandated to secure the necessary vaccines and blended financing resources for achieving Africa’s COVID-19 vaccination strategy which targets vaccinating a minimum of 60 per cent of Africa’s population.
He said AVATT’s efforts are focused on; securing enough safe and efficacious vaccine doses to vaccinate at least 60 per cent of the African population, estimating the funding needs for vaccine procurement and delivery and creating the financing mechanisms required to ensure that all African Union Member States can access and receive the vaccine doses they need to reach a minimum of 60 per cent immunisation.
He said under the mechanism, the vaccines are being sourced from Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, and AstraZeneca.
He said a finance facility has been created under the AVATT- the Advance Procurement Commitment (APC) Facility to be backed by African Import and Export Bank (Afreximbank).
Mr Mwamba said this mechanism aims at ensuring Africa’s access to the COVID-19 vaccines from no later than April 2021, by providing assurance to identified vaccine manufacturers that vaccine orders placed through the African Medical Supplies Platform (AMSP), are firm and will be paid for as may be agreed.
He said Zambia’s allocation may rise to 25million doses by December 2021.
Mr Mwamba said the Permanent Representative Committee (PRC) was briefed of the progress that has been made to ensure that member states began to receive the vaccines from March- April 2021.
This is contained in a statement issued by Inutu Mwanza First Secretary (Press&Tourism).
