Ramaphosa told the annual session of the World Health Organisation that Africa was particularly prone to the devastation of the novel coronavirus, both in health and socio-economic terms. 

"Africa is extremely vulnerable to the ravages of this virus and needs every possible support and assistance, including much-needed resources, to bolster its response and offset a potentially devastating social and economic fallout," he said.

Ramaphosa, who is the current chairman of the African Union, noted that it had called for help from the developed world for African states to fight the virus and rebuild their economies.

"This assistance needs to include debt relief, more special drawing rights allocations with the international financial institutions, and the provision of comprehensive and robust stimulus packages to vulnerable countries," he said. 

"To turn back the frontiers of the pandemic, we also need to deepen international collaboration around research and development and investment in essential medical technologies, in Covid-19 diagnostics and therapeutics, and in vaccines."

He noted that the African Union had taken concerted steps to respond to the pandemic and mitigate its impact.

"We have developed a comprehensive Covid-19 strategy, established an African Union Covid-19 Response Fund and embarked on a fundraising drive to strengthen the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention."

To date, contributions to the response fund and the centre totalled US$ 61 million, Ramaphosa said.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has indicated that it would cover the debt service payments for 25 of the poorest countries in the world for six months.

It has faced calls from global figures to use special drawing rights allocations to allow the central banks of stricken countries to convert reserves into currency as they confront the economic fallout of the pandemic.

The IMF has estimated that emerging nations would need relief totalling up to US$ 2.5 trillion to cope with the worsened economic climate.

African News Agency (ANA)