Oando, BusinessDay host dialogue on vaccine allocation in Africa

Africa’s indigenous energy company operating in the upstream sector, Oando in partnership with BusinessDay Media Limited, Ventures Africa, and One Campaign is planning to host an industry conversation expected to address issues around allocation, engagement, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa.

The Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) is targeting 35 percent vaccination by 2021, however, there are gaps.

The webinar will examine Africa’s readiness to roll out the vaccines given the prevalent funding, logistical and infrastructural challenges, with a focus on proffering actionable solutions to address some of the continent’s unique challenges.

The webinar themed “COVID-19 vaccine: allocation, engagement, and distribution in Africa” slated for March 23, 2021, will feature speakers such as Olaolu Aderinola, head response division, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), and Chizoba Wonodi, faculty member, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Other experts confirmed to join the conversations are Ngozi Onyia, managing director and founder of ‎Paelon Memorial Hospital, and Edwin Ikhuoria, Africa executive director at ONE Campaign, while COVID-19 survivor, Ademola Ogunbanjo, general manager, Business Support Group at Oando Energy Resources, will moderate the session.

The panellists, with combined industry experience of over 40 years, will examine pivotal issues around COVID-19 such as the high costs of testing and impact on data, high rate of self-diagnosis and treatment, socio-cultural biases towards vaccination.

According to the World Bank, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked the worst global crisis since the Great Depression, ushering a reversal in the fight against extreme poverty, thereby, pushing an additional 88 million people into extreme poverty in 2020.

This implies that the largest share of the “new poor” will be in South Asia, with Sub-Saharan Africa closely behind. Vaccination is thus, pertinent to the continent’s economic revival.

Speaking on vaccinating the African populace, Chizoba Wonodi, country director, International Vaccine Access Centre (IVAC) said African countries need to come up with their own solutions to the pandemic.

“Now that we know a bit more about COVID, we need to look beyond a copycat response. We need our own data to be able to make our own decisions about what works best in our context,” Wonodi said.

Africa has recorded over four million COVID-19 cases and over one hundred thousand fatalities, with the Africa CDC ascribing the low death rate to the continent’s young population.

While the continent has fared better than expected with lower cases and fatalities, the pandemic has exacerbated existing economic inequality, slowed economic growth, and overshadowed existing public health concerns.

With over 359 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered globally across 122 countries; and governments of the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan aiming to vaccinate 70 percent of their populations by Q2 2021, and EU countries by Q3 2021, Africa is trailing far behind with an estimated seven million doses administered to date; representing only one percent of its population.