Russia has offered to provide 300 mn doses of its Sputnik V vaccine to the African Union along with financing for countries that want to secure shipments, the African Union's vaccine procurement body said in a statement on Friday. Member states will have a 12-month window to place their orders for the vaccine, starting from May from the AU's Africa Medical Supplies Platform (AMSP), and are now able to start the pre-order process. Meanwhile, AVATT advises that the 270 million doses previously secured from AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnsons were all taken up by the first allocation phase deadline through the African Medical Supplies Platform (AMSP). With these additional 300 million Sputnik V vaccines, AMSP accelerates online COVID-19 vaccines pre-orders for the 55 African Union member states. "The Sputnik V vaccine from the Russian Federation is now available on the AMSP for the consideration of our AU Member States," says Dr John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). "Bilateral and private sector partnerships such as these aid our efforts to bringing the COVID-19 pandemic to an end." African Union member states that wish to secure funding should approach the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) through their Central Banks, as has been the case with the other vaccines that have been on offer. The Board of Afreximbank, last week, approved the USD$ 2 billion Advance Purchase Commitment for the participating suppliers, allowing the finalization of supply contracts.
