Africa's efforts to build up capacity to manufacture vaccines against Covid-19 are not designed to meet this year's needs but are for the longer term, the head of the continent's top public health agency said on Thursday.

"The efforts that are going on on the continent now as part of the African Partnership for Vaccine Manufacturing (are) going very well, there are about 10 countries that are engaged now in the process of vaccine manufacturing or planning to do so," said John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

He said the leading countries involved were South Africa, Senegal, Rwanda, Algeria and Morocco.

"However that is not designed to meet the needs for this year, for sure. It's designed with the understanding that we have to find a long-term solution for ... vaccination in Africa. It's also designed with the understanding that we may be immunising ourselves almost every six months on the continent with this virus."