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The statement by Macron’s office said that enough jabs had now been purchased through AVAT to enable vaccination of 400 million people in Africa – a third of the continent’s population – by September 2022, at a cost of $3bn.

Separately, the World Health Organization said on Monday that the Republic of the Congo had received more than 300,000 vaccines doses from the United States, its first under Covax.

The donation amounts to 302,400 jabs of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the agency’s African branch said on Twitter.

Congo, also called Congo-Brazzaville to differentiate it from its much bigger neighbour the Democratic Republic of Congo, began vaccinations in April using the Chinese formula Sinopharm and Russia’s Sputnik.

But uptake of these vaccines has been very low, and vaccine hesitancy or suspicion are widespread. As of mid-August, less than two percent of Congo’s eligible population had been inoculated.

On August 15, President Denis Sassou Nguesso issued an appeal for the public to get vaccinated, saying collective immunity was “the only path to safety” in the fight against the pandemic.