Covid-19 - France delivers 10 million vaccine doses to the African Union (Dec. 8, 2021)

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In line with the commitments it made in 2021, France has delivered 10 million doses of AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19 to the countries of the African Union. These donations are especially critical as a new wave of the pandemic is feared on the continent.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, France has promoted fair, universal access to vaccines, especially in Africa. It is strongly committed to accelerating vaccination worldwide, and by summer 2022 will have donated 120 million doses of vaccine, 73 million of which have already been made available.

The vaccines are allocated and distributed through a partnership with the African Vaccination Acquisition Trust (AVAT) and the COVAX mechanism to provide global access to the vaccine coordinated by Gavi, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.

France wanted this action to benefit African countries on a priority basis. Mauritania received its first donation via COVAX this past April. Since then, nearly 60% of French donations have been allocated to 38 African countries as doses purchased by France become available.

This effort by France represents a first step – decisive but not yet sufficient – to fill the healthcare product access gap between Africa and the developed countries in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to the donations that help accelerate vaccination on the ground, our common goal is to help build production capacity in Africa, thereby enabling it to respond on a sovereign basis to future pandemic outbreaks.

Together with its EU partners, France supports the ambition of African nations to build a pharmaceutical industry on the continent. It is actively engaged in strengthening vaccine production capacities in Africa and actively contributing to the transfer of messenger RNA technology to the African continent, particularly South Africa, Rwanda and Senegal.