As Africa continues to lag behind in the global COVID-19 vaccination race, the continent faces a dangerous resurgence of coronavirus, with deaths and hospital admissions reaching record levels.
With just under 5.3 million reported cases and about 139,000 deaths among its nearly 1.3 billion people, Africa is still the world’s least affected continent after Oceania, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP).
So far, African countries have been spared disasters comparable to Brazil or India.
But the pandemic is resuming at an alarming rate in at least 12 countries, and continental falls are expected to reach a record high in about three weeks.
“The third wave is gaining momentum, spreading faster and hitting harder,” World Health Organization (WHO) Africa director Matshidiso Moeti warned on Thursday. “The recent rise threatens to be Africa’s worst so far.”
Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) director John Nkengasong on Thursday described the third wave as “extremely brutal” and “very devastating.”
And Liberian President George Weah has warned that the wave is “much more alarming than a year ago” when hospitals abound in his country.
Mixing Africa’s third wave is immunization failures, the spread of more transmissible virus variants and winter temperatures in the southern hemisphere.
The Delta variant, first discovered in India, has so far been reported in 14 African countries, accounting for the majority of new cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, according to the WHO.
Doctors in South Africa, which accounts for more than 35% of all cases registered on the continent, are struggling with an unprecedented influx of patients.
Unlike previous waves, this time “the hospital system is failing”, says Medical Association chief Angelique Coetzee.
South Africa’s average new daily infections have increased 15 times since the beginning of April, and hospital admissions increased by about 60%.
“Unsurpassed” death in Zambia
Namibia and Zambia also see steep infection curves.
Zambia’s Ministry of Health has reported an “unsurpassed” number of COVID-19 deaths, pushing mortuaries while the Africa CDC said the country was “overwhelmed”.
With similar trends in Uganda, Health Minister Jane Ruth Acheng blamed highly contagious variants for the new spread, saying it was “different from the other wave” with a large number of young people in hospitals.
Uganda is one of the countries facing a reported lack of oxygen, although Acheng denied civil society groups’ claim that the shortage amounts to 24.5 million liters (865,209 cubic feet) per day.
Governments are tightening restrictions again, including a new nationwide deadlock in Uganda and a stricter curfew in 13 Kenyan counties.
At the same time, the pace of vaccinations is struggling to get out of the ground.
According to the WHO, about 1% of the continent’s population is fully vaccinated – the lowest ratio globally – and 90% of African countries will have no goal of inoculating a tenth of their population by September.
“We are running a race behind time, the pandemic is ahead of us. We are not winning this fight against the virus in Africa,” said Africa CDC’s Nkengasong.
“It’s scary what’s happening on the continent,” he added.
A recent promise by Western leaders to donate 1 billion vaccine doses to poorer countries has been widely criticized for being too slow.
Cases are “faster than vaccinations,” Moeti said. “Africa urgently needs a million more vaccines. We need a sprint.”
‘Waiting to die’
Several countries have failed to administer jabs from the UN-supported COVAX schedule before their end date due to logistical errors and vaccine uncertainty.
Malawi destroyed nearly 20,000 expired doses of AstraZeneca in May, while the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan have returned more than 2 million shots to the UN to avoid a similar scenario.
Authorities in Congo-Brazzaville are concerned about the slow use of nearly 100,000 Chinese-made vaccines, which expire in July.
A sharp increase in coronavirus cases in India, the world’s largest AstraZeneca supplier, has delayed deliveries of COVAX to Africa.
Malawi emptied their warehouses last week, just as thousands would for their second shots.
And hundreds of frustrated Zimbabweans protested last month after Harare’s main vaccination center ran out.
South Africa says it has secured enough Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to immunize 67% of its 59 million inhabitants.
But the launch has been hit by setbacks and only 2.2 million people – healthcare professionals and over 60s – have so far gotten a jab.
“The lack of vaccines in a region with high levels of poverty and inequality makes many people feel like they are just waiting to die,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Regional Director.
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