Over the last year, as the scientific community quickly mobilized to develop, test and produce multiple effective vaccines, the focus for VillageReach has been protecting health workers and communities against the virus. As an organization dedicated to the delivery of vaccines, medicines, supplies and information, COVID-19 vaccine delivery has been constantly on our minds. We participated in the Country Readiness and Delivery working group of the vaccine pillar of the Access to COVID Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) to help link global-level plans with country efforts.

We are still concerned about critical gaps in the resources available to support vaccine distribution across the continent. Despite some significant commitments, we are still coming up short in the financing of the systems that deliver, which if not addressed could lead to delays in getting frontline workers and other high-risk populations vaccinated– something we saw firsthand when vaccines started rolling out locally and across the U.S.

We are encouraged with what we are seeing in the countries where we work as we support the government with the planning, data systems, communications and transportation networks needed to get vaccines in arms as quickly as possible.

In DRC, this means supporting the planning and delivery of vaccines in rural provinces and combatting vaccine misinformation so communities can have consistent and reliable updates.

Read the full article about vaccines in Africa by Emily Bancroft at Global Washington.