The latest:
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the first one million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine for the novel coronavirus are expected to arrive next week for distribution in some 20 countries on the continent.
The doses are the first of some seven million coming from the Serum Institute in India.
Africa CDC director John Nkengasong and colleagues did not immediately say which countries on the 54-nation continent will receive the first shipment, but Nkengasong said Thursday that health workers will get the shots.
“We are very excited,” he said.
Africa is waiting for vaccines from the global COVAX initiative, which has said it would supply 25 per cent of those needed for the continent’s 1.3 billion…