Are African nations doing enough to curb COVID-19?

When the global pandemic began more than a year ago, many predicted African countries would suffer devastating losses.

And there have been more than 5 million cases and nearly 140,000 deaths on the continent.

That only represents less than 3 percent of the total global COVID-19 cases.

And a fraction of the continent’s 1.3 billion people.

But there have been worrying signs in recent weeks, with more contagious variants driving up infections in many African countries.

Cases in some regions have more than doubled in just the past week. The number of deaths has gone up as well.

Leaders in Africa are now urgently appealing for more vaccines.

But would that stop the rise in new infections on the continent?

Presenter: Rob Matheson

Guests:

Thierno Balde – Deputy incident manager for COVID-19 Emergency Response at World Health Organization Africa

Mohga Kamal-Yanni – Senior policy adviser at the People’s Vaccine Coalition

Azeddine Ibrahimi – Professor of medical biotechnology at Mohammed V University