WHO urges African countries to urgently ramp up COVID-19 vaccinations as the squeeze on vaccine shipments eases.

Namibia, South Africa, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia accounted for 83% of the new deaths recorded in the past week.

With case numbers doubling every three weeks, the Delta variant is spreading to a growing number of countries.

The COVID-19 upsurge comes as the vaccine supply crunch persists.

A lack of adherence to transmission prevention measures has fuelled the new surge that coincides with colder seasonal weather in southern Africa and as more contagious variants spread.

Only 38 million vaccines have been received on the continent of about 1.2 billion people.

Just 2% of the continent’s nearly 1.3 billion people have received one dose and only 9.4 million Africans are fully vaccinated.

Country faces health, humanitarian, climate and economic challenges.

Government uses tech to contact trace, send money to the poor during lockdown, and now for vaccination rollout.

First batch of COVAX vaccines arrived in March, country aims to inoculate 70% of 200 million people by 2022.

Countries need to invest in research and ratify African Medicines Agency treaty to regulate manufacture of home-grown medical products.