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* African Union secures 400 mln more AstraZeneca doses
* Health bodies hope to cover 60% of Africans in 2-3 years
* Tanzania's president says God and steam will protect
people
(Recasts, with details about vaccines)
By George Obulutsa
NAIROBI, Jan 28 (Reuters) - The African Union (AU) has
secured another 400 million doses of the AstraZeneca
COVID-19 vaccine, a regional health leader said on Thursday, in
a push to immunize 60% of the continent's population over three
years.
As richer nations race ahead with mass immunisation
campaigns, Africa is scrambling to obtain supplies for its 1.3
billion people. Only a handful of African nations have begun
giving doses.
John Nkengasong, director of the AU's disease control and
prevention body, told an online briefing that in addition to 270
million doses previously secured, the bloc would get 400 million
shots from the Serum Institute of India (SII) - all
AstraZeneca/Oxford University shots.
A spokesman for the SII declined comment.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is the cheapest option and one of
the best-suited to African health systems as it does not require
storage at ultra-low temperatures like the vaccine from Pfizer
and German partner BioNTech.
Separately from the AU's efforts, Africa is to receive about
600 million vaccine doses this year via the COVAX facility
co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Health authorities hope to vaccinate about 30-35% of
Africans this year, rising to 60% in two to three years. The AU
has said vaccines secured by its vaccine task team will be
allocated according to population.
Though COVID-19 has not hit Africa as badly as some experts
had feared it would, wealth disparities, logistical difficulties
and "vaccine nationalism" by developed nations may put the
world's poorest continent at a disadvantage.
Africa has reported 3.5 million infections and 88,000
deaths, according to a Reuters tally. That is fewer fatalities
than individual nations the United States, Brazil, India, Mexico
and Britain.
OUTLIER TANZANIA
In an implicit rebuke to Tanzanian President John Magufuli,
who has discouraged mask-wearing and social distancing,
discontinued data publication and called vaccines a malign
foreign plot, WHO Africa director Matshidiso Moeti urged
Tanzania to implement such measures, prepare vaccinations and
share data.
"Africa is at a crossroads and all Africans must double down
on preventive measures," she told an online news conference on
Thursday, saying WHO officials were in touch with Tanzanian
officials. "Science shows that vaccines work."
Magufuli's government has published no coronavirus data
since May 8, when the country had 509 cases and 21 deaths.
On Wednesday, he said, without evidence, that vaccines were
a foreign plot to spread illness and steal Africa's wealth. He
urged Tanzanians instead to trust God and use alternative
remedies such as steam inhalation.
"We in Tanzania managed to stay for a year without corona.
Even here, no one has put on a mask. Our God is beyond Satan and
Satan will always fail using different diseases," he said in a
speech in his western home area.
Nkengasong said the Africa CDC was exploring obtaining more
vaccines from China, Russia and Cuba, and would work with any
partner whose vaccine was safe and effective.
(Reporting by George Obulutsa, Nairobi newsroom and Alexander
Winning;
Writing by Andrew Cawthorne
Editing by Alex Richardson and Frances Kerry)
