evidence: NPR's Leila Fadel talks to Dr. Phionah Atuhebwe of the World Health Organization about the challenges that countries in Africa are facing in vaccinating their citizens. The Delta variant is rapidly spreading across the African continent in a third wave of COVID-19 infections, and only about 1% of Africans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, making people vulnerable. The majority of African countries participate in COVAX, a global initiative created to improve equity in vaccine distribution. But vaccines haven't reached people as efficiently as hoped. Dr. Phionah Atuhebwe is the World Health Organization's new vaccines introduction officer for Africa. The WHO is one of the organizations leading COVAX. [...] ATUHEBWE: Right now, to be honest, we are at the mercy of the richer countries that are having much more vaccine than they require, given that in Africa we have not even vaccinated 1% of our population, let alone vaccinating the priority groups. We have health workers in Africa working in COVID treatment centers and have not been vaccinated because they cannot access the vaccine dose. And that's ethical and moral obligation that we think the Western world has to the African population. We know that we are a global village. See what the Delta variant has now done, even to countries that have vaccinated huge populations.