Vaccination programmes have been slow to get off the ground in Africa, but the start of the UN-backed Covax initiative in Africa is good news for countries at the front of queue.

Some countries such as South Africa and Zimbabwe have already begun independent vaccination programmes, but from this week Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria start to benefit from the Covax scheme.
How are African countries getting vaccines?

In the global competition to get hold of vaccines, African countries have not so far been as successful as richer countries.

The Covax programme aim to distribute an initial half million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine worldwide, with the aim of supplying two billion vaccines by the end of 2021.

Of this total, the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) says 600 million doses will be for Africa, enough to vaccinate at least 20% of the population.

Those nations that have sourced vaccines outside the Covax scheme have done so largely through direct purchases from manufacturers, or as donations from countries such as China, Russia, India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

France's President Emmanuel Macron has proposed that rich countries in Europe and the US share their extra vaccines with Africa.

He says he wants these doses be made available quickly for African countries.

Is it enough?

John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), says the vaccines provided "will not get the pandemic out" of the continent.

He says African countries will eventually need to vaccinate at least 60% of their populations, with his target for this year being 35%.

There's also an African Union plan to pool supply arrangements on behalf of all 55 countries in the continent.

Africa's leading mobile network provider, MTN, has made a donation of $25m (£17.8m) to this plan to secure about seven million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine for the continent's health workers.

The CDC says an initial one million doses acquired through the MTN arrangement will be shipped to about 20 African countries by the end of February.

It's not known yet which countries will receive these.
What's happened to vaccinations in South Africa?

South Africa, the worst affected country on the continent, delayed an initial vaccination plan using the AstraZeneca vaccine due to concerns about its efficacy against a new variant of coronavirus.

It started vaccinating on 17 February after receiving 80,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is administered as a single dose and has been shown to be effective against the variant.

Pfizer has also committed to supply 20 million vaccine doses, with deliveries expected by the end of March.

South Africa has offered the one million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine it ordered from the Indian supplier to the African Union, to distribute to other countries which might be interested in using it.