China to prioritise Africa once coronavirus vaccines are ready

China has promised to give priority to African countries once COVID-19 vaccines are ready to use.

The Chinese President Xi Jinping was quoted by the state television as making that promise at a summit on Wednesday.

Vaccines for the deadly coronavirus are still being worked on without an effective result just yet, although other forms of treatments are being tested on patients.

China is also at the forefront of working on a vaccine for the virus which first broke out there.

President Xi is said to have told the China-Africa summit that his country will ensure that African countries don’t get muscled out in accessing vaccines when available.

This week scientists announced that a drug called dexamethasone has proofed effective in saving lives of patients seriously ill with coronavirus.

The drug which is reportedly cheap and widely available is able to fight against the deadly virus, according to UK experts.

That means the drug can largely be useful in poor countries struggling to protect patients from dying.

The experts say low-dose steroid treatment did cut the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators and by a fifth for those on oxygen.

The latest drug was part of a series of ongoing trials for existing treatments for Covid-19.

Dexamethasone is already used to reduce inflammation in a range of other conditions.

The drug helps to stop damage to the body’s immune system, enabling it to withstand any overdrive in fighting off coronavirus.