Africa is ending another challenging year. The COVID-19 pandemic continued to spread, fuelled by new variants, while vaccine deliveries to the continent stuttered before picking up, causing delays in vaccination drives amid intensified calls for equity. The region also faced a range of other major health emergencies, including cholera, Ebola, Marburg and meningitis. Thanks to the region’s expertise in health emergency response, the outbreaks were successfully brought under control. Despite the challenges, Africa made significant advances in health including spearheading the novel oral polio vaccine rollout, reinforcing COVID-19 genomic sequencing and vaccination drives as well as eliminating sleeping sickness in Cote d’Ivoire and trachoma in The Gambia. Below is a highlight of the key events that marked 2021.

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