[ti:WHO Says Africa to Receive Vaccine Doses in March] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:01.04]Many African countries are expected to receive [00:05.04]their first COVID-19 vaccine doses in March [00:10.16]from the United Nations' COVAX effort. [00:15.00]The World Health Organization's Africa director [00:18.68]recently announced the plan. [00:22.56]The statement comes as deaths on the continent [00:26.52]from the disease have been rising. [00:30.64]COVAX is a plan from the WHO, [00:34.52]the European Commission and France to vaccinate people [00:39.60]in poor and middle-income countries against COVID-19. [00:46.72]Matshidiso Moeti is the WHO Regional Director for Africa. [00:55.56]She told reporters that a larger supply of the millions of doses [01:01.00]from COVAX is expected by June. [01:06.12]It is the second major vaccine announcement in one week [01:11.24]for the African continent of 1.3 billion people. [01:18.00]Last Wednesday, the leader of the African Union [01:22.36]said 270 million doses came from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson [01:30.24]and AstraZeneca through the Serum Institute of India. [01:37.76]About 600 million doses are expected [01:42.20]to be provided through the COVAX effort. [01:46.72]Doses are expected to be given to countries [01:50.68]based on population size and the severity of their health crises. [01:59.40]Health workers will receive the doses first [02:03.36]as thousands of them have been infected. [02:08.68]African countries are now recording [02:11.68]about 30,000 new virus cases each day [02:16.60]compared to 18,000 during the first surge months ago. [02:24.52]John Nkengasong is director of the Africa Centers [02:30.40]for Disease Control and Prevention, or Africa CDC. [02:37.72]He has said that confirmed deaths from COVID-19 [02:42.80]jumped 21 percent in one week in Africa, [02:47.20]with more than 5,400 reported. [02:53.80]The continent has more than 3.1 million confirmed virus cases, [03:00.92]including more than 75,000 deaths. [03:08.52]This second wave of infections [03:11.76]is "hitting very, very hard," said Nkengasong. [03:18.64]The case death rate in Africa is now 2.4 percent, [03:24.68]which is above the world rate of 2.2 percent. [03:30.44]Around 20 African countries [03:33.48]have case death rates above the world average. [03:39.12]They include Sudan at 6 percent, Egypt at 5 percent, Mali at 3.9 percent, [03:49.00]Congo at 3.1 percent and South Africa at 2.8 percent. [03:58.32]South Africa is one of the world's hardest-hit countries. [04:04.64]A highly infectious variant of the virus now makes up most new cases. [04:12.52]The country has more than 1.2 million cases including 35,000 deaths. [04:23.20]The WHO's Moeti said gene sequencing tests [04:29.64]have found the new variant in three other countries: [04:34.28]Botswana, Gambia and Zambia. [04:39.92]The importance of a strong genomics surveillance system [04:44.48]cannot be overstated, Moeti said. [04:49.20]Africa CDC director Nkengasong [04:53.64]said the fast-growing number of cases [04:57.32]"means we run into short supplies of oxygen." [05:03.44]He has been seeking to increase the supply to Africa, [05:08.36]where medical oxygen is not easy to get. [05:13.56]Vaccine doses from the COVAX effort [05:17.20]are expected to reach 20 percent of the population in Africa. [05:25.04]Officials are pushing to secure enough doses [05:29.44]to meet the goal of vaccinating the 60 percent needed [05:34.60]to achieve herd immunity against the virus. [05:39.96]The vaccinations "will require a very massive historic campaign" [05:46.24]of a kind that the continent has never seen, Nkengasong said. [05:53.56]There are already concerns about how African countries [05:58.36]will be able to store vaccines that require extremely cold storage. [06:06.52]Nkengasong said African governments are being advised [06:11.40]to get deep freezers to start the vaccinations [06:15.36]at hospitals in large cities. [06:19.12]They are advised to then bring people to those points [06:23.80]to receive the vaccines. [06:27.00]I'm Alice Bryant. 更多听力请访问51VOA.COM