Masiywa accuses Western Countries of duping Africa on COVID-19 vaccines

Telecommunications tycoon Strive Masiyiwa, says Western countries duped Africa on CVOID19 vaccines resulting in shortages in the continent.

While the US has fully vaccinated 45% of its people, the UK 47% and the European Union 29%, Africa only has 1.1% of the population vaccinated.

Speaking during a virtual summit on vaccine equality and equitable distribution Masiyiwa said , “It’s not a question of if this was a moral failure, it was deliberate.’’

“Those with the resources pushed their way to the front of the queue and took control of their production assets.”
Now Africa is in the grip of a devastating third wave of coronavirus infections,” he said.

African countries have since launched their vaccination campaign , while relying on outside vaccines.

The roll out campaigns have however been slow due to a number of attributing factors, lack of funds, trained professionals and hesitancy among the population to get the vaccine.

Masiyiwa added that ,“The people who bought the vaccines and the people who sold them the vaccines knew that there would be nothing for us.”

“If ever there was an inquiry into how this was done, we even find Covax culpable because we were misled. We were led down the garden path,”

“We got to December believing that the whole world was coming together to purchase vaccines, not knowing that we had been corralled into a little corner while others run off and secured the supplies,” he said.

There are growing concerns that supply shortages in many African countries are holding back the continuing rollout of their vaccination programmes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says a large number of poorer countries relying on the global vaccine sharing scheme Covax do not have enough doses to continue vaccinating.