President Akufo-Addo has revealed that to date, less than ten percent (10%) of Africans have been vaccinated for the COVID-19 jabs, in comparison to the European Union, for example, which, as of August, had vaccinated seventy percent (70%) of its population.
He said With countries on the continent still not being able to have sufficient access to vaccines in the requisite numbers, Africa, like the World Health Organisation, are worried that the phenomenon of hoarding vaccines will worsen even further, as countries begin to administer booster shots in response to the threat posed by the omicron variant of the virus.
President Akufo-Addo stated that COVID-19 has posed the greatest test to humanity in the initial decades of the 21st century, in light of the ravages of the pandemic, which have affected all countries, rich or small.
According to President Akufo-Addo, the predictions of Africa going to be hit dramatically because of her relatively weak public health systems, with streets being littered with dead bodies when the virus reached the continent, have not come to pass.
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said this when he delivered an address to the European Union Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
Delivering his speech, President Akufo-Addo stated that COVID-19 has posed the greatest test to humanity in the initial decades of the 21st century, in light of the ravages of the pandemic, which have affected all countries, rich or small.
“I am a firm believer in the statement that ‘no one is safe until everyone is safe’. Let us help make vaccines available to all parts of the world, encourage our citizens to take the jab, and we would win the fight against COVID faster and together.
“We were not given credit for quickly following the science as recommended, when many leaders in Europe were still fighting ideological battles, and seeking to lay blame on the source of the virus, rather than uniting to fight it,” he said.
The President continued, “At every stage, we in Africa, have been dismayed to discover that every attempt was being made to make COVID-19 also an African disease. Thus, the narrative emerged that it was not really that Africans were not dying from the pandemic, we had to be covering up the true level of infections”.
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com/Kofi Atakora
