More than 230.04 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 4,921,629 have died, according to a Reuters tally on Thursday.
Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.
This is coming on the heels of calls by the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa that the pace of vaccinations in Africa must rise by over seven times to around 150 million per month on average to meet the global goal of vaccinating 70% of every country’s population.
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“As it stands one in three people globally are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, but in Africa this drops to one in 25,” Dr Benido Impouma of WHO Africa said at a news briefing.
Covax deliveries were still coming in to African countries – with four million doses arriving in the past week – but it was concerning that only a third of the doses pledged by the end of 2021 had been received, he added.
He was talking after a virtual summit aimed at boosting global vaccination rates against Covid, where US President Joe Biden pledged to donate 500 million more doses of the Pfizer vaccine to developing nations from next year.
