2 African countries in 4th wave

MBABANE – With the low level of vaccination, the whole African continent may soon be attacked by a fourth wave of the COVID- 19 pandemic. In the past week, Algeria became the second country to experience the fourth wave after Tunisia which declared the fourth wave about three weeks ago.

The Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC) Dr John Nkengasong made this announcement during a meeting on Thursday.

The World Health Organisation ( WHO) had stated clearly that the only way to prevent emergence of newer waves and variants of the pandemic was through effective vaccination.

This, according to health experts, meant vaccinating as quickly as possible and covering the target herd immunity, which is 67 per cent of the population for Africa.

None of the countries in the continent has achieved herd immunity as only 1.3 per cent has been covered.

“In total, 82.7 million vaccines have been delivered to 53 member States and 61 million of those have been administered, which translates to 75 per cent that has been consumed,” he said.

Dr Nkengasong said Tanzania, Burundi and Eretria have not started rolling out the vaccination programme for various reasons.

In his update, the doctor said more member States were also experiencing the new variants as 38 countries have reported the Alpha variant; 32 have reported the Beta variant and 21 have reported the Delta variant, which is the newest and more severe one.

He also mentioned that a majority of the countries were at an advanced stage of the third wave as deaths and new infections were on the rise.

“About 29 countries are experiencing a severe third wave; in 20 countries the wave is more aggressive and six countries have just declared this wave.”