Remarks by WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti
My warm greetings to our journalist colleagues and everyone watching this press conference on the COVID-19 situation, particularly variants circulating in Africa.
I am very pleased to be joined for this conversation by first Professor Alan Christoffels, the Director of the South African National Bioinformatics Institute, or SANBI, at the University of the Western Cape. SANBI is a key WHO collaborator in an exciting new initiative which we will tell you about. Welcome professor.
It’s my great pleasure also to be joined by and to welcome Dr Christian Happi, who is a Professor of Molecular Biology and Genomics and Director, at the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases at Redeemer University in Nigeria. Dr Happi will update us on how variants are impacting the COVID-19 epidemic in Nigeria.
A very warm to you Prof and I’m certain we will have a very good conversation about these very interesting themes.
So, the COVID-19 third wave in Africa has taken a downward slide, with a 23% (so almost a quarter) decrease in new cases last week, driven largely by countries in northern and southern Africa. That’s the steepest drop in eight weeks since the peak in July. This is an encouraging sign, but I can see that it is coming off a rather higher peak than the previous two waves.
However, indeed we are at still more than 165 000 new weekly cases, higher than the first wave’s peak. This progress also comes with a stark reminder of the heavy toll COVID-19 has taken as we pass the sad milestone of 200 000 lives lost to the virus on the continent.
Variants of concern, in particular the Delta, have sparked flare-ups, prolonging the acute phase of the third wave for longer than we had expected.
This is creating challenges for the public health response, compounded by population fatigue, frankly, and difficulties people are having in adhering to personal preventive measures, especially where living and working conditions are crowded.
In the past month, the Delta – which is linked to more severe COVID-19 cases and with more people catching the virus (it’s most transmissible) – was detected for example in over 70% of the samples sequenced from Botswana, Malawi and South Africa, and almost all samples from Zimbabwe – over 90%.
Scientists are also tracking C.1.2 – a variant that has been found in 130 cases in 10 countries globally, including five African countries where more than 90% of the cases are occurring, mainly in South Africa. While the variant has some concerning mutations, there’s no evidence yet that it is more transmissible nor that it affects vaccine efficacy. We will be learning more about this from the two professors.
Knowing which variants are circulating and where is critical for informing effective response operations. This is why together with SANBI, WHO in Africa is launching a new Regional Centre of Excellence for Genomic Surveillance in Cape Town. The Centre will help to scale-up sequencing and bioinformatics on the continent for COVID-19 and we are certain for other diseases.
The continent lags far behind the rest of the world when it comes to sequencing, accounting for only 1% percent of over 3 million COVID-19 sequences conducted worldwide. So, this ground-breaking initiative aims to initially support 14 Southern African countries to scale up their genome sequencing by 15-fold each month. This analysis will shed light on what pathways COVID-19 is using to spread into communities.
WHO is providing the project with more than an initial 4.5 million dollars in its first six months, as well as technical support. We are very excited about this partnership and you will hear more about this initiative from Professor Chritoffels.
On the vaccine front, in the past week, the COVAX Facility has delivered over five million doses to African countries.
I was saddened to read that three times as many doses have been thrown away in the United States alone – 15 million doses since March 2021. This is enough vaccines to cover everyone over 18 years in Liberia, Mauritania and the Gambia, for example. Every dose is precious and has the potential to save a life.
High-income countries have pledged to share 1 billion doses globally, and so far 120 million doses have been released.
Manufacturers are now producing 1.5 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses globally each month, and two billion doses are required to reach 40% of people in every country. If producing countries and companies prioritize vaccine equity, this pandemic can be over quickly.
But yesterday, the COVAX platform shipment forecasts for the rest of the year were revised downwards by 25%, in part because of the prioritization of bilateral deals over international solidarity.
G20 health ministers have this week, expressed their support for the global 40% vaccination target. This goodwill needs to be accompanied by concrete actions and financing for the global fight against COVID-19 to succeed.
So, I look forward to our conversation today, starting with what we are going to hear from my fellow panellists, and I thank you once again for joining us.