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Africa to receive 270 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine – Ramaphosa

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The South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, on Thursday confirmed that the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) has secured a provisional 270 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine for the continent.

Ramaphosa, who is also the Chairman of the African Union (AU), disclosed this in a state in Pretoria.

He said at least 50 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines supplied by Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca will be available between April and June 2021.

The Serum Institute of India is overseeing the process.

The president said: “Our focus as a continent has been on collaboration and collective effort. We have not only campaigned vigorously for changes through all the available international forums, but we have taken the additional step to independently secure vaccines using our own limited resources as member states.”

READ ALSO: Vaccines our major hope for tackling COVID-19 in Africa – WHO

The South African leader had announced this week that 1.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, which will vaccinate about 750,000, people would be delivered to his county in the coming weeks.

The former apartheid enclave has the highest COVID-19 burden in Africa with 1, 259, 748 confirmed cases and 34,344 deaths.

Followed by Ethiopia with 128, 992 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2,004 fatalities.

Nigeria has 103, 999 confirmed cases with 1, 382 fatalities while Algeria completed the top four in Africa with 102, 641 cases and 2, 816 deaths.

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