China pledges a billion Covid vaccine doses to Africa

China’s President Xi Jinping has promised to send to Africa some one billion Covid vaccine doses to help close the “vaccination gap”.

The president made the pledge during the China-Africa summit.

Out of the one billion, 600 million doses will come from China directly while 400 million will come from other sources like funded production sites.

China has already been giving doses to African countries.

The recent pledge comes amid the spread of the new Omicron coronavirus variant that was first detected in southern Africa.