Amid a new wave of Covid-19 contagions, African scientists on Tuesday denounced what they described as vaccine apartheid by developed countries to the detriment of this continent.
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Apartheid was the name South Africa's white minority gave to the racial segregation development system in force in that country until the internal and international pressure forced the release of anti-racist leader Nelson Mandela after 26 years in prison and convened elections from which a black-majority government emerged.
Less than three percent of 1.3 billion Africans are fully vaccinated against the pandemic, Dr. Ahmed Kalebi, consultant pathologist and Lancet Kenya founder, said.
The complaint follows criticism by the World Health Organization's Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti, who accused Western powers of hoarding vaccines some days ago instead of sharing them equitably with the rest of the world.
Statistics from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention show that 248,000 new contagions were reported last week in Africa and 28 states in this continent are amid an increase in cases due to the emergence of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the lethal disease.