U.S. public health officials have been told to stop working with the World Health Organization, effective immediately.

The director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that at least 2.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines donated to the continent's countries have expired, citing short shelf lives as the major reason.

The director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says African governments might have to resort to COVID-19 vaccine mandates if their citizens don’t hurry to get the increasingly available doses.

In the global race to vaccinate people against COVID-19, Africa is tragically at the back of the pack.

One of the largest foundations in the world announced Tuesday it will spend $1.3 billion over the next three years to acquire and deliver COVID-19 vaccines for more than 50 million people in Africa.

Africa's top public health official says the continent is “watching with total disbelief” as India struggles with a devastating resurgence in COVID-19 cases.

The Africa CDC director says he wants to believe that India will lift export restrictions on COVID-19 vaccines as soon as possible, warning that “India is not an island” while some African nations still have seen no shots at all.

But COVAX has been facing delays related to the limited global supply of vaccine doses as well as logistical issues. That’s why some countries such as South Africa, the hardest-hit African nation, are also pursuing COVID-19 vaccines via bilateral deals and through the African Union’s bulk-purchasing program. There are ongoing discussions between WHO, the global vaccine alliance GAVI and Indian authorities aimed at ensuring COVAX shipments continue to be prioritized, the official said. That amounts to about 1.5 billion vaccine doses. This is a global pandemic, and we need to solve it through global vaccination, global public health methods," said Anthony Costello, a professor of global health and sustainable development at University College London.

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)MEXICO CITY __ Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador posted a video Thursday saying he had tested negative on an antigen test, after testing positive for COVID-19 about 12 days ago. State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker turned down the idea Thursday. He says, “The trend is favorable, but the situation is still very, very bad.”Spain has administered 1.67 million vaccine doses, with more than 586,000 people getting both doses. Ad___TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has received its first batch of the Russian coronavirus vaccine. Iranian state TV quoted Tehran’s ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, as saying Iran has ordered 5 million doses from Russia.

(AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)NAIROBI – Another 400 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been secured for the African continent through the Serum Institute of India, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. An Africa CDC spokesman said the 400 million doses are of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Africa also is expected to receive some 600 million doses via the global COVAX initiative aimed at helping low-income countries. As for the 270 million doses announced earlier, “we know very well some of these doses will not be available soon,” Mihigo said. He said that overall, reaching 35% of Africa’s population with COVID-19 vaccines by the end of this year could be a “realistic assumption.”Mihigo also criticized the global differences in cost for COVID-19 vaccines.

Plastic surgeon Daniel Suver receives the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine from Andrea Castelblanco during a vaccine clinic on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020, at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, Alaska. Anchorage is averaging about 60 new COVID-19 cases a day, said Dr. Janet Johnston, the epidemiologist for the Anchorage Health Department. More than 90 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine will be produced in Japan. Ad___SACRAMENTO -- California reported its second-highest number of COVID-19 deaths — while the rates of new coronavirus infections and hospitalizations continue to drop. ___ALBANY, N.Y. — New York may have undercounted COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents by thousands.

FILE In this Thursday, Dec. 24, 2020 file photo, a long-distance traveller undergoes a COVID-19 test at a mobile clinic at a taxi rank at Johannesburg's main railway station. The level of testing across Africa is considerably less than what health experts say is needed to effectively control the spread of the disease. Just 10 countries — South Africa, Morocco, Ethiopia, Egypt, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and Cameroon — are carrying out more than 70% of the continent’s testing. Increased testing is needed to help Africa locate where cases are rising and where additional medical responses are needed. In efforts to track the level of infections in communities, countries such as South Africa and Ghana are testing for the prevalence of COVID-19 in sewage water.

NAIROBI – “It will be extremely terrible to see” rich countries receiving COVID-19 vaccines while African countries go without, especially as a new surge in cases begins on the continent of 1.3 billion people, Africa’s top public health official said Thursday. He has warned that the coronavirus could become endemic in Africa if vaccinations take too long. Africa's 54 countries now have a total of more than 2.3 million confirmed infections, including 100,000 in the past week. The U.S. has said the waiver would be a “broad and unprecedented step,” according to notes from an internal WTO meeting last month. “It’s like inviting someone to dinner and giving them a plate but then keeping all the food.”___Maria Cheng in London contributed.

Nearly 25% of the cases reported Thursday were in Multnomah County, Oregon’s most populous county and home to Portland. Missouri is dealing with a surge in new coronavirus cases, with 1,580 more confirmed cases reported Wednesday. State officials reported 333 new confirmed cases of the respiratory virus on Thursday, topping the previous single-day record set less than a week ago. The state Department of Health Services reported 566 new confirmed cases across the state, bringing the confirmed total to 215,852. The state reported 565 people hospitalized on Wednesday, down from the mid-July high of more than 3,500.

FILE - In this Monday, June 29, 2020, file photo, men in face masks walk past a hair product billboard on the street in Soweto, South Africa. The coronavirus pandemic has fractured global relationships as governments act in the interest of their citizens first, but John Nkengasong, Africa's top public health official, has helped to steer the continent's 54 countries into an alliance praised as responding better than some richer nations. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)

While the U.S. surpassed 200,000 COVID-19 deaths and the world approaches 1 million, Africa's surge has been leveling off. Experts caution that data collection in many African countries is incomplete, and Nkengasong warned against complacency, saying a single case can spark a new surge. Nkengasong urges African countries not to wait for help and rejects the image of the continent holding a begging bowl. When the pandemic began, just two African countries could test for the coronavirus. Less than half of Africa's countries have access to modern health care facilities, he said.

Experts are eager to know the real number of COVID-19 cases in Africa, as confirmed cases and deaths have been relatively low on the continent of 1.3 billion people. Thats while Mozambique has just 2,481 confirmed virus cases. The new continent-wide antibodies study will include all African countries, but the ones showing interest to start in the coming weeks are Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Nigeria and Morocco, Nkengasong said. The Mozambique antibodies surveys detected the virus in all neighborhoods in Nampula and Pemba, National Institute of Health director Ilesh Jani told reporters. The country has more than 28,000 confirmed cases.

JOHANNESBURG The coronavirus pandemic in Africa is reaching full speed and its good to prepare for the worst-case scenario, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief said Thursday, after a South African official said a single province is preparing 1.5 million gravesites. South Africa has the most confirmed cases with over 224,000, and for the first time Gauteng province home to Johannesburg and the capital, Pretoria has the countrys most cases with over 75,000, or 33%. With any COVID-19 vaccine, a delay in Africa of even one year would be catastrophic, he said. The African Union last month said governments around the world should remove all obstacles to swift and equitable distribution of any successful COVID-19 vaccine, including by making all intellectual property and technologies immediately available. Africa in recent days has begun taking part in COVID-19 vaccine trials in the face of increasing misinformation on the continent.

Africas first participation in a COVID-19 vaccine trial has begun as volunteers received injections developed at the University of Oxford in Britain. The large-scale trial is being conducted in South Africa, Britain and Brazil. The large-scale trial is being conducted in South Africa, Britain and Brazil. South Africa has nearly one-third of Africa's confirmed cases with more than 106,000, including more than 2,100 deaths. Cameroon, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa all have highly developed clinical trial capabilities, said Salim Abdool Karim, chair of South Africa's ministerial advisory committee for COVID-19.

The pandemic appears to be taking a different pathway in Africa, the World Health Organization said. By comparison, when Europe reached 100,000 cases it had more than 4,000 deaths, the WHO said. But we must not be lulled into complacency.Cases could increase significantly now that many countries are easing lockdowns, the WHO said. In the past week, four African countries had an increase in virus cases of over 100%. South Africa has been testing assertively and leads the continent with more than 19,000 cases.