(Bloomberg) --

The African Union’s public health agency urged Covid-19 vaccine donors to help ensure that the distribution of shots is aligned with take-up so that all of them are used.  

“We have not asked them to pause the donations, but to coordinate with us so that the new donations arrive in a way so that countries can use them,” John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a webinar Thursday. “This is very different from saying don’t donate at all.”

While governments in Africa, the least-vaccinated continent, are playing catch up to reach levels of coverage in other parts of the world, many have experienced difficulties getting needles into arms. Twenty-nine African countries have used less than half of their available stocks, according to the World Health Organization. 

Covax, an initiative led by groups including the WHO that’s provided almost two-thirds of the shots shipped to Africa in the past year, says it’s largely overcome the major supply problems it experienced last year. Deliveries to Africa under the program increased more than 100% between November 2021 and January 2022, the WHO said in a statement Thursday.

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