{"id":22743,"date":"2021-12-11T15:30:03","date_gmt":"2021-12-11T15:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?p=22743"},"modified":"2021-12-11T15:11:14","modified_gmt":"2021-12-11T15:11:14","slug":"africans-should-brace-for-more-covid-19-variants-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/africans-should-brace-for-more-covid-19-variants-experts","title":{"rendered":"Africans should brace for more Covid-19 variants \u2013 experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. <\/strong><\/span>Experts have warned that Africa will continue seeing a circle of new Covid-19 variants if more people are not vaccinated.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a transnational science caf\u00e9 on Friday attended by journalists from East and Southern Africa, Dr Lul Riek, a public health expert based at the Africa CDC, said the continent needs to have reached between 60 and 70 per cent of the population vaccinated by end of 2022 if hard immunity is to be achieved.<\/p>\n

He said that with just 7.6 per cent of the population vaccinated so far, achieving this target is hard yet other continents have shown it\u2019s possible to vaccinate a lot of people in a short time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfrica CDC would like to call upon everyone that has access to Covid-19 vaccine to be vaccinated. We have all moral obligations to do the right things, we are not forcing people to be vaccinated but we are just saying it is the only how we can stop this pandemic,\u201d Dr Riek said.<\/p>\n

While generally, the low vaccination numbers have been tagged by several entities including the World Health Organization (WHO) to vaccine hesitancy, Dr Riek said they haven\u2019t found that as a problem in Africa. He said that if more vaccines are availed to the people even in the hard-to-reach areas, numbers would quickly pick up.<\/p>\n

Dr Riek added that it\u2019s unnecessary for governments to adopt draconian ways to push people to vaccinate by making it mandatory but rather show them why they really need to take their jabs.<\/p>\n

Dr Talkmore Maruta, a Senior Biosafety and Biosecurity officer in the continental health body, said with access problems associated with countries hoarding booster doses, they have embarked on engaging countries in the region to start local manufacturing and already some of the vaccines are being received now are manufactured locally for instance in South Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are several channels available to access vaccines through regional negotiations. The challenge has been the supply chains that have been under pressure to meet demands even where governments have their resources to purchase,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With the current Omicron variant being seen to affect children as well, Dr Maruta said countries should start thinking about vaccinating younger children.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, at the WHO, Dr Richard Mihigo, the Immunization and Vaccines Development Programme Coordinator for the Regional Office for Africa, said the Omicron variant is reaching more countries in Africa and weekly Covid-19 cases in the continent surged by 93 per cent this week.<\/p>\n

Africa recorded more than 107,000 cases in the week ending on 5 December, up from around 55 000. Five countries accounted for 86 per cent of the cases reported over the past week and all the sub-regions in the continent \u2013 up from one the previous week \u2013 reported increases in new cases. Southern Africa recorded the highest increase with a 140 per cent hike mainly driven by an uptick in South Africa.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Uganda<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. Experts have warned that Africa will continue seeing a circle of new Covid-19 variants if more people are not vaccinated. Speaking at a transnational science caf\u00e9 on Friday attended by journalists from East and Southern Africa, Dr Lul Riek, a public health expert based at the Africa CDC, said the continent needs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":22742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,8],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-22743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","category-homepage-english","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"yoast_head":"\nAfricans should brace for more Covid-19 variants \u2013 experts - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Experts have warned that Africa will continue seeing a circle of new Covid-19 variants if more people are not vaccinated ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/africans-should-brace-for-more-covid-19-variants-experts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Africans should brace for more Covid-19 variants \u2013 experts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Experts have warned that Africa will continue seeing a circle of new Covid-19 variants if more people are not vaccinated ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/africans-should-brace-for-more-covid-19-variants-experts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uganda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-12-11T15:30:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/12\/img-61b4bf7d4a210.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/africans-should-brace-for-more-covid-19-variants-experts#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/africans-should-brace-for-more-covid-19-variants-experts\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Africans should brace for more Covid-19 variants \u2013 experts\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-12-11T15:30:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/africans-should-brace-for-more-covid-19-variants-experts\"},\"wordCount\":493,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/africans-should-brace-for-more-covid-19-variants-experts#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/12\/img-61b4bf7d4a210.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"community\",\"homepage-english\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/africans-should-brace-for-more-covid-19-variants-experts#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/africans-should-brace-for-more-covid-19-variants-experts\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/africans-should-brace-for-more-covid-19-variants-experts\",\"name\":\"Africans should brace for more Covid-19 variants \u2013 experts - 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