France will donate 100,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine against the new coronavirus to African countries as part of the Covax mechanism, a source at the Élysée announced Wednesday.
Covax is an international mechanism for delivering vaccines to poor countries, thanks to donations from States and private actors, and in whose creation the European Union (EU) played a leading role.
The doses donated by France will come from AstraZeneca’s packaging plant in Italy, after the company’s unit in India was excluded from supplies by order of the New Delhi government to ban vaccine exports following the critical pandemic situation in the country.
“Africa is where there is more priority” for the arrival of vaccines, added an Elysée source, speaking to a group of journalists.
France also wants the Covax initiative to prioritise vaccine shipments to Latin America, “where there are very important challenges” given the spread of virus mutations in that region, the same source added.
Covax is a global initiative, led by the World Health Organisation and the Alliance for Vaccines (Gavi), which aims to make access to a covid-19 vaccine equitable.
Since 24 February, with the arrival of the first doses in Ghana, Covax has distributed more than 40.5 million covid-19 vaccines to 118 low- and middle-income countries, including Lusophone African countries and Timor-Leste.
