Thus far, China has been the biggest donor of vaccines to Africa. The US is going to change this.
The US government announced on Friday that it will send 25 million vaccine doses to Africa, a donation that comes close to matching the 27.9 million jabs that China has provided to various African countries over the past six months.
The vaccines will be distributed through the COVAX vaccine alliance with the first batch of a million doses going to Burkina Faso, Djibouti, and Ethiopia, according to a statement published on Friday by the alliance.
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However, in sharp contrast to the inequitable distribution of Chinese vaccines in Africa (2/3 of all the vaccines sold & donated have gone to just three countries), the US vaccines will be sent to 49 countries, said the COVAX statement.
Separately, in Asia, President Xi Jinping on Friday told a virtual gathering of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum that Beijing will provide $3bn over three years to help developing countries in Asia recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
This article was first published in The China Africa Project.
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