China's President Xi Jinping pledged on Monday to provide an additional 1 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine to African countries now facing the emergence of the Omicron variant, classified as of "concern" by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Without giving a date for the distribution, the Chinese president said that 600 million doses will be donated to the continent and the rest will be produced jointly between Chinese companies and countries in the region.

The promise was made in a video speech during the China-Africa Cooperation Forum being held in Senegal. So far, Beijing has provided nearly 200 million doses to African countries.

But the support does not end there. At the same event, Xi promised to offer African financial institutions a credit line of $10 billion and will encourage Chinese companies to invest another $10 billion in the mainland over the next ten years.

In addition, Beijing intends to provide another US$ 10 billion to support African exports to China, which have increased to US$ 300 billion over the past 10 years.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Africa show that only 7% of the population on the African continent has been fully vaccinated against covid-19, which shows the wide inequality in the global immunization campaign.

Source MA