President Emmanuel Macron has said France will invest in boosting the production of Covid-19 vaccines in Africa, to help close a gap in the availability of the shots between African and Western nations.

Speaking at a joint news conference with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Pretoria, Macron said Africa made up around 20 per cent of the world's need for vaccines but only 1pc of vaccine production.

"How do we boost the production of vaccines on the African continent?" he said. "On this, we will this afternoon have an investment strategy to help these industrials produce more, and quite quickly."

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