- The World Bank money will be in the form of grants or on “highly concessional terms
- The cost of vaccinating 60% of Africa’s 1.3 billion people would be between $10 billion and $15 billion
Mbabane: The World Bank has committed E318 billion (US$12 billion) to African countries to support vaccination programmes across a continent that hasn’t been able to keep pace with developed nations’ rollouts.
According to the global lender’s President, David Malpass in a statement, as quoted by News 24, the World Bank money will be in the form of grants or on “highly concessional terms. Malpass made the statement following a virtual meeting in January on the Africa Covid-19 vaccine financing and deployment strategy.
“We’re preparing emergency vaccine financing projects in 21 countries in Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Niger, Mozambique, Tunisia, Eswatini and Cabo Verde to name a few,” said Malpass. “The funds are available now,” he said.
The cost of vaccinating 60 percent of Africa’s 1.3 billion people would be between $10 billion and $15 billion, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control.
The continent has secured 36 percent of its vaccine needs, with 25 percent of the doses to come from the Covax initiative and 11 percent from a separate African Union program, Africa’s CDC said. But it’s far behind the rest of the world in terms of acquisition and inoculations, with richer nations having secured the scarce shots early.
“Since the outbreak of Covid-19 last March, the bank has committed $25 billion to African countries to support their health and economic recovery, and we expect to commit an additional $15 billion by June,” Malpass said.
“We urge leaders of African countries to move quickly to secure vaccinations for their populations, and to avail themselves of the financing available from us.”
Health experts claim that the worst is over when it comes to the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi said on Monday the country had “passed the peak” of its second coronavirus infection wave, although some of restrictions on some sectors of the economy remain in place.
The second wave of the pandemic has claimed over 500 lives, with cases spiralling to about 16 000.
Unlike, the first wave, the second one seemed to have had devastating effects in terms of the fatality rate.
Also, a new strain of the virus, which is highly infectious, was found in neighbouring South Africa and local health officials did not dismiss suggestions that the virus may have been spread to Eswatini due to the proximity between the two countries and the ‘ease’ of travel.
The decline of COVID-19 daily infections and the death rate have been lauded as a clear indicator that the country might have reached and passed the peak of the second wave of the virus and the Ministry of Health with the World Health Organisation (WHO) testifying to this.
For the first time in over a month, the country recorded a two digit number, 45, on its daily confirmed positive COVID-19 cases, according to the updates provided by the Ministry of Health.
This update was met with warmth and optimism that the second wave was wearing down.
Since mid-December, the country has been recording over 100 confirmed positive cases a day, multiplying the number to a total of 15 711 confirmed cases in a short space of time.
A close study of the daily updates on COVID-19 also revealed that there was a great decline in COVID-19 positive cases, regardless of the high numbers that were still testing for the disease.
In the past week, from January 25 to January 31, the total number of recorded positive cases was 1 227, totalling the average daily infections to 175 cases.
In the week of January 18 to January 24, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases was 1 540, bringing the average daily infection rate to 220 cases.
The average daily confirmed positive cases declined in the past week by 45 cases.
Also, the average deaths recorded daily for the past week was 12.2 whereas during the week of January 18 to January 24 it was 14.7.
The highest recorded numbers of deaths per day, during the second wave, was 24 which was recorded on January 20 and January 26.
In January, the highest daily infection rate was 346 cases which was recorded in December 20, the same day which recorded the highest recorded deaths.
Minister of Health Nkosi said the declining numbers were evidence that the country had reached the second wave peak, stating that a contributing factor to the declining numbers were the newly-introduced stringent lockdown rules.
“There are interesting trends that we watch closely daily, weekly, bi-weekly, moving averages that show the flattening of the curve,” said Nkosi.
However, Nkosi highlighted that there was a tendency of a dip on Sundays and she said this was the trend not only in the country but internationally.
The dip was mainly attributed to the fact that there was fewer movement of people on Sundays, meaning people test less.
However, last Sunday 1 245 people tested, with only 45 testing positive.
It is mainly mid-week when the country records a high number of people who test for the virus.
The minister said they were still closely watching the trend in results for the next two weeks, hoping that the situation would improve even more.
In the meantime, Director of Health Services Dr Vusi Magagula said they were aware that the numbers were communicating that the wave was going down, however, stating that it was a bit too early to conclude that the country was safe from the second wave.
“A combination of many factors have contributed to the decrease in the COVID-19 infections and deaths,” said Dr Magagula.
Dr Magagula said people should not be too excited as these were the early stages of the calming down of the storm.
World Health Organisation (WHO) Health Promotion Officer Dr Kevin Makadzange said the numbers from the recent statements from the Ministry of Health were an indicator that the country had reached the last stage of the COVID-19 second wave.
“Contributing to this is obviously the lockdown, which introduced the closure of shops by 6pm. The early closure of businesses means there is less movement of people and this results in the controlled spread of the virus,” said Dr Makadzange.
He said it took about a week or more to see the implications of decisions taken by government.
“We are yet to see the results of the ban of alcohol,” he said.
He attributed the spike of cases of COVID-19 cases and deaths to the festive season, which brought about a lot of movement among people.
“There was no social distancing during the festive season. Families met, people were celebrating and there was basically a lot of movement. We are yet to see a great regress in cases now that there is less movement,” said the health promotion officer.
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