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Rabat – The latest United Nations report shows that Morocco is among only five African countries that have reached the UN goal to vaccinate 40% of the country’s population by the end of 2021.
The UN report stressed that Morocco, Cape Verde, Mauritius, Seychelles, and Tunisia are leading African countries as they vaccinated 10% of their citizens by September of last year.
Most other African countries have been unable to meet the UN’s target for achieving full vaccination rates of 40% by the end of December as they have vaccinated less than 5% of their population.
The WHO raised concerns over the low vaccination rates in Africa since only 102 million people (7.5% of the continent’s population) are fully vaccinated.
The global health institute set a new target for countries with an aim to vaccinate 70% of their populations by mid-2022. In Africa, over 80% of people have yet to receive the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
“As things stand, predictions are that Africa may not reach the 70% vaccination coverage target until August 2024,” WHO Africa regional director Matshidiso Moeti noted.
The UN agency revealed last month that COVID-19 related cases soared across the continent by up to 83%. The increase of new cases is driven by the Delta and Omicron variants, the slow vaccine rollout, and problematic shortages of vaccines.
Morocco’s COVID-19 figures have sharply increased in recent weeks. The country reported 8,338 new cases and 10 deaths in the last 24 hours.
Since the start of the pandemic, African countries have acquired 357.9 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine due to several vaccine distribution deals with China.
As of December 2021, Eritrea is the only African country that has not started vaccinating against COVID-19, according to reports from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
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