Alexander Winning and George Obulutsa
Johannesburg/Nairobi - Africa needs to speed up vaccinations six-fold if it hopes to beat the Covid-19 pandemic, and people on the continent should not become complacent in light of reports that Omicron is milder than previous variants, director of WHO Africa said on Thursday.
Only 11% of Africans are fully vaccinated, lagging behind most of the the world. The World Health Organization's Matshidiso Moeti said around 6 million Africans were being vaccinated per week, but “that number needs to increase exponentially to 36 million a week to put countries on the path to beating this pandemic.”
She said she was worried that reports that the Omicron variant was milder than earlier strains of the virus would undermine vaccine programmes.
"I think we are already seeing signs that people's understanding is that this virus is spreading very fast but it is not very lethal and, therefore, some people will feel 'why, bother?’" she said.
Health experts say that although Omicron can be milder than other coronavirus variants, it can still cause serious illness and death. Vaccines sharply reduce those risks, saving lives and protecting health care systems from becoming overwhelmed.
The African Union has launched a campaign urging young Africans in particular to come forward for vaccination. Other organisations, such as the WHO and UNICEF, are also working to make vaccination easier for Africans.
In South Africa, where a huge wave of Omicron cases has subsided after peaking late last year, the government has scrapped isolation rules for people who test positive, but display no symptoms. Moeti said it was understandable that countries would experiment with measures.
“I think it is very understandable that, in seeking to reach balance, countries are working on normalising the response while managing the risk,” she said, adding that countries needed to monitor the impact of relaxing restrictions very closely.
At a separate briefing, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr John Nkengasong cautioned countries against going too far in relaxing restrictions because of a perception that Covid-19 was now endemic.
“With an 11% positivity rate and the severity of what we are seeing now, that is the waves that keep coming and going ... it doesn't meet the definition of endemicity,” he said.