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Johnson & Johnson to deliver up to 400 million doses of vaccine to Africa

2021-03-29T15:16:54.238Z


They will be distributed to the 55 member countries of the African Union. Deliveries will begin in the third quarter of 2021.


Up to 400 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine will be delivered to African Union countries, Johnson & Johnson, an American pharmaceutical giant, announced on Monday.

Under the terms of the deal, 220 million doses of the serum, which requires only one injection, will be distributed to 55 African Union member countries, with deliveries starting in the third quarter of 2021.

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The countries concerned will be able, if they deem it necessary, to order 180 million complementary doses, for a total of 400 million Johnson & Johnson vaccines dispatched by 2022. “We are committed to equitable and international access to vaccines against the Covid-19 ”, indicates Alex Gorsky, CEO of the American firm, in a press release.

In January, Johnson & Johnson announced that its vaccine was 66% effective against Covid-19.

Unlike the remedies from Pfizer and Moderna, which use the innovative messenger RNA technique, “J & J's” vaccine is a “viral vector” vaccine.

A process also used for AstraZeneca and Sputnik vaccines.

These vaccines use another weakly virulent virus as a carrier, transformed to add genetic instructions from part of the virus responsible for Covid-19.

The modified virus enters the cells of vaccinated people, which then make a protein typical of SARS-CoV-2, training their immune system to recognize it.

A vaccine that is easier to store

Another important advantage of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine is that it can be stored at refrigerator temperatures rather than freezers, making it much easier to distribute.

Between mid-February and the end of December 2020, 2.8 million cases of coronavirus infections were recorded in the 55 countries of the African Union, or only 3% of the global total, and 65,602 deaths were recorded, according to a study published last week in the British journal The Lancet.

At the same time, China is increasing deliveries to several African countries, such as Senegal, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Morocco and Equatorial Guinea.

This is a way for the world's second-largest economy to establish its presence on the African continent, where it has been developing economic investments for twenty years.

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"China wants to prove that a developing country is capable of finding a vaccine, of producing it and of distributing it on a large scale," Thierry Pairault, specialist in China-Africa relations, recalled in our columns in February.

At the same time, France, the country of Pasteur, is not capable of releasing anything: for China, that means a lot.

"

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"The slowness of the vaccination campaign in poor countries, especially in Africa, is inexplicable and intolerable", had already lamented Emmanuel Macron, who proposed to transfer 3 to 5% of the vaccines available in rich countries in Africa.

Benin begins vaccinating its population

In addition, the Covax device, which aims to provide low-income countries with doses of anti-Covid vaccines, made it possible to send a first delivery of free vaccines to Ghana at the end of February, 600,000 doses of AstraZeneca / Oxford.

In all, the country is expected to receive 2.4 million doses.

READ ALSO> Vaccines and poor countries: investigation of Covax and the “somewhat naive” dream of the WHO

This Monday, Benin in turn begins to vaccinate its population with doses of AstraZeneca vaccines.

On March 10, the country received 144,000 doses out of the 792,000 doses it should receive by May, also thanks to the Covax device of the World Health Organization.

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2021-03-29

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