AMSP opens Covid-19 vaccines pre-orders for AU member States

19th January 2021

By: Tasneem Bulbulia

Senior Contributing Editor Online

     

Font size: - +

Following the announcement by African Union (AU) chairperson President Cyril Ramaphosa on January 14 that the AU has secured a provisional 270-million Covid-19 vaccine doses for Africa through its Covid-19 African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (Avatt), the Africa Medical Supplies Platform (AMSP) has, on behalf of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), started the Covid-19 vaccines pre-order programme for all AU member States.

Trade finance institution African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) will facilitate payments by providing advance procurement commitment guarantees of up to $2-billion to the manufacturers on behalf of the member States.

While Avatt has secured a provisional 270-million Covid-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, AMSP – the single-source platform enabling faster, more transparent and cost-effective access to Covid-19 supplies – has opened pre-orders, offering an equitable access to Covid-19 vaccine doses for member States, AMSP says.

“These are historical times. For the first time in history, Africa has secured access to millions of vaccine doses in the middle of a pandemic. There is still a huge shortage of vaccine doses and that is why this continental collaboration has designed a fair allocation coupled with timely and equitable access of Covid-19 vaccines across the continent,” AU Special Envoy Strive Masiyiwa says.

“Afreximbank is proud to expand its support to African economies in their bid to contain the pandemic. Our vaccine financing facility builds on the success of our Pandemic Trade Impact Mitigation Facility to open access to Covid-19 vaccines to African States based on a whole-of-Africa approach favoured by the AU.  

"By providing advance procurement commitment guarantees of up to $2-billion to candidate vaccine manufacturers, Afreximbank will ensure that African States are able to rapidly access Covid-19 vaccines at competitive prices and in a timely manner, thereby, contributing to saving lives and livelihoods,” says Afreximbank chairperson and president Professor Benedict Oramah.

To support vaccination operations, AMSP has also launched a new category of vaccine accessories which will help member States procure products such as ultralow-temperature freezers, personal protective equipment, cotton wool rolls, syringes and needles.

AU member States are now able to start placing online pre-orders for their vaccine allocation through AMSP.

Edited by Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION