The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has taken another step to
strengthen the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. This time, the
organisation has committed to donate an additional $250 million towards the global
campaign to accelerate the development of vaccines.

“We have new drugs and more potential vaccines than we
could have expected at the start of the year. But these innovations will only
save lives if they get out into the world,” Bill Gates said in a statement on
Thursday.

Part of the funds will be used
to distribute life-saving doses of the vaccines to poorer countries in Africa
and South Asia.

Africa has registered over 2.3 million cases, with 54,800 deaths.
As of Wednesday, South
Africa remains the worst-hit country in the continent with over 828,000 cases.

The World Health Organization has set a goal of
vaccinating three percent of Africans by March 2021 and 20 percent of by the
end of next year. The organization said that at least $5.7 billion will be required to get
vaccines to “priority” popular sectors in the continent. Another 15-20 percent
will be required to deliver the vaccines and other material.

Solomon Zewdu, the coordinator for the Gates
Foundation’s Covid-19 response in Africa, announced on Thursday that the funding would
help ensure that vaccines reach close to 780 million people in Africa.

It is important to ensure that vaccines “are
effectively financed to find their way onto the continent and the least
appreciated corners of Africa. The focus right now is to say …how do we get
those vaccines beyond the tarmacs of particular airports like, you know Addis
Ababa airport, Kinshasa, Lagos into communities and immunize people. Unless
that’s done then we haven’t done the work,” Zewdu told AFP.