Pfizer’s announcement arrived at a time when cases have exploded in the North and South of the continent, particularly in Libya and Tunisia, and Botswana and Namibia respectively; each of those countries has an average of more than 300 new cases per day per million people for the past seven days.

According to the WHO, 21 African countries have seen cases rise by over 20% for each of the past two weeks.

The African-manufactured Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines, which will be produced in collaboration with the South African firm Biovac, won’t roll off the lines until 2022. The effort will produce more than 100 million vaccines per year once it’s operating at full capacity.

Pfizer has announced it will start manufacturing its COVID-19 vaccines, with its partner BioNTech, in Africa as from 2022. Through July 20, just 3% of Africa’s population has received at least one COVID shot.