The Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative, a $1.5 billion partnership between the Mastercard Foundation and the Africa CDC, is accelerating vaccination across the African continent.

Considerable progress has been recorded across the four focus areas; purchase of vaccines for more than 65 million people, deployment of the vaccines across the continent, the development of a workforce that will manufacture vaccine in Africa and strengthening the capacity of the Africa CDC.

So far, three countries have surpassed the 70% vaccination target; Seychelles (81.3%), Mauritius (76.6%0 and Rwanda (76.5%). Also, 10 countries have attained a target of between 40% and 70% include Comoros, Lesotho, Liberia, Mozambique, Botswana, Cape Verde, Tunisia, Morocco, and Sao Tome and Principe.

In total, about 21.2% percent of the continent’s population is fully vaccinated, hence, to drive increase in COVID-19 uptake, the in-country implementation took place in Kenya, Lesotho, Namibia, Nigeria, and Rwanda.

The strategy behind the country implementation launch is to synergize the efforts of the Government, Africa CDC, and other implementing partners in increasing COVID-19 vaccine uptake. The implementation campaign will focus on Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE), vaccine capacity, logistics, and vaccine surveillance to enable these countries reach their COVID-19 vaccination target.

The country implementation launch started in Kenya on July 22nd. The vaccination drive comes when the country is experiencing the 6th wave of COVID-19 infection, with only 32% of the adult population fully vaccinated. In this support, the Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative and the Ministry of Health have planned a target of more than 8,000 outreaches while strengthening 672 COVID-19 vaccination centers and vaccinating more than 1m within 12 months in selected districts.

More here.