UNICEF SIGNS SUPPLY AGREEMENT OF 220 MLN COVID VACCINE TO AFRICA

Fri 09 July 2021:

UNICEF has signed an agreement with Janssen Pharmaceutica NV to supply up to 220 million doses of the J&J single-dose vaccine for all 55 Member States of the African Union (AU) by the end of 2022. Some 35 million doses are to be delivered by the end of this year.

Some 35 million doses are to be delivered by the end of 2021, said UNICEF in a press release.

The agreement between UNICEF and Janssen will help implement the Advance Purchase Commitment signed between the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) and Janssen in March 2021. That agreement secured an option to order another 180 million doses, bringing the maximum access up to a total of 400 million doses by the end of 2022, said UNICEF.

The AU established AVAT in November 2020 to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the African continent, with a goal of vaccinating 60 percent of its population. UNICEF will procure and deliver COVID-19 vaccines on behalf of the AVAT initiative. Other partners include the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Bank.

“African countries must have affordable and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines as soon as possible. Vaccine access has been unequal and unfair, with less than 1 percent of the population of the African continent currently vaccinated against COVID-19. This cannot continue,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.

“Vaccinating the world against COVID-19, as the virus continues to spread and mutate, is one of the largest and most complex collective health undertakings the world has ever seen, and we need all hands on deck,” said Fore.

Janssen’s COVID-19 vaccine received a WHO Emergency Use Listing (EUL) on 12 March and is relying on a global supply network to produce the vaccine. The latest site for production, Aspen Pharmacare in Gqeberha, South Africa, was approved by the WHO on 29 June. Deliveries of the vaccine are expected to begin later in the 3rd quarter of 2021, with allocations to be determined by the Africa CDC.

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