Lack of access to vaccine and poor economic recovery means Africa has a ‘difficult road’ ahead

pandemic

Lack of access to vaccine and poor economic recovery means Africa has a ‘difficult road’ aheadByAnne Gulland, GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY DEPUTY EDITOR4 November 2021 • 7:30am

The world is at risk of fracturing into a “great divide” with richer, vaccinated nations recovering at a much faster rate from the pandemic than poorer nations who have no access to jabs, a report has warned.

Africa – where less than six per cent of the population is fully vaccinated compared to 55 per cent in Europe – faces a “long and difficult” road out of the pandemic, a report by the Tony Blair Institute says. 

The report says that because of high vaccine coverage many people in high and middle-income countries will be protected from Covid and that these nations are on course to return to pre-pandemic levels of social and economic activity by the middle of next year. 

In contrast, people living in Africa are still largely unvaccinated and could be faced with more lockdowns, the circulation of new variants and restrictions on travel and tourism, impacting both economic recovery and population health. 

Hayley Andersen, one of the report’s authors, said that in the short term the impact would be most keenly felt in Africa.

“But in the medium to long term this is going to be everybody’s problem. We’re trying to wave the flag with this report that it’s not too late to avoid this and we need to take action now,” she said. 

She said the economic harm wrought by the pandemic would most likely hurt Africa more than the direct impact of Covid itself. 

“In terms of worst case scenarios we’re looking at a lost decade or more of low growth and low productivity,” she said. 

The report highlights how this twin track world is already leaving Africans at a disadvantage. People from Africa currently face severe restrictions in terms of how much they can travel beyond the continent. Most countries are only allowing fully vaccinated travellers to enter without having to undergo quarantine or take expensive PCR tests, ruling out the 94 per cent of Africans who have not been double jabbed. 

And some countries, such as the UK, only recognise vaccines approved by their own regulator, rather than the longer list of vaccines approved by the World Health Organization. This list includes two Chinese-developed vaccines and two India-made vaccines which are being used in many low and middle income countries.Advertisement

The report also warns that many low income nations are reliant on tourism but this has still not picked up in many parts of the world. 

Liya Temeselew, one of the authors of the report, said that the tourism industry in east Africa has lost more than 90 per cent of its revenue since the start of the pandemic. 

“This has definitely been one of the hardest hit sectors and continues to be. It’s also linked to the informal employment sector which is what a lot of people in African countries rely on,” she said. 

The report warns that the instability and economic turmoil is likely to lead to increased migration from Africa and reduced resilience to threats such as climate change and even another pandemic. 

As well as urging countries to fulfil their pledges to share vaccines and remove export restrictions and other trade barriers on vaccines and their ingredients, the report also calls on richer countries to endorse a comprehensive funding package for Africa.

Ms Andersen said this assistance should be in the form of grants rather than loans.

“A lot of African countries are already facing an enormous debt burden so to continue to take on more debt to respond to this crisis is not in their interest,” she said.

Source: Telegraph. Co.uk