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Africa has been urged to find home grown solutions in fighting covid19 and therefore create its on vaccination and cure.
Speaking last month at an Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) high-level panel discussion on whether Africa was ready to finance its own vaccines, leading experts felt that Africa needed strong political will and all-round infrastructure to successfully roll out its own vaccines.
World Health Organisation Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told the panel that the development of vaccines in record time in response to COVID-19 had given the world reason for hope but the hope must be for all.
“No country can vaccinate its way out of the pandemic, not even the wealthy ones,” Dr. Ghebreyesus emphasized, warning that as long as the virus was circulating, it would mutate. Equitable vaccine distribution the only sure way to stop it.
“Even with the vaccines, we still have a long road ahead,” he said, warning that COVID-19 had destroyed economies, disrupted trade, travel and tourism, leaving import-reliant African countries exposed.
Citing the World Bank, Dr. Ghebreyesus noted that for every month that vaccines were delayed in reaching Africa, $13.8 billion was lost in GDP.
“The fastest way to get economies on track is vaccine equity,” Dr. Ghebreyesus said, adding, “Ultimately Africa needs to be able to meet its own needs for vaccines and other essential products. That means financing local manufacturing capacity, comprehensive regulation and sustainable supply chains
In light of this, The African Union on yesterday announced the launch of a partnership to manufacture vaccines at five research centers to be built on the continent within the next 15 years.
Africa sits on the “sidelines” of the vaccination drive against COVID-19, with only two percent of the world total to have received jabs, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), citing supply, funding and personnel shortfalls.
However, the AU and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) plan to change all that.CEPI, which helps run the global COVAX vaccine-sharing program with the public-private alliance Gavi and the WHO, signed up to boost African vaccine research and development as well as manufacturing.
The five centers will be located in the north, south, east, west and center of Africa over the next 10-15 years, said John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an AU agency.The target is to produce locally within 20 years 60 percent of all vaccines used on the continent — compared with one percent today.“We are aware that it is a challenge,” said Nkengasong after a two-day virtual meeting.However, he said, “If Africa does not plan to address its vaccine security needs today, then we are absolutely setting ourselves for failure.”
Richard Hatchett, chief executive of CEPI, a public-private partnership set up to try to stop future epidemics, added: “Together we can strengthen Africa’s capacity to prevent, detect and respond to emerging and re-emerging infectious threats.
“By building regional resilience and strengthening health security on the continent we can mitigate the disproportionate health and economic impacts that epidemic infectious diseases can have on populations in low and middle-income countries.”
Current AU president Felix Tshisekedi noted, “Sufficient funds will be required, legislative harmonization in Africa and incentives.”
The Africa Export-Import Bank and the Africa Finance Corporation also signed the memorandum of understanding on Tuesday.
Tshisekedi called on the African diaspora worldwide “to help strengthen the medicine and vaccine production capacities in Africa”.
The project “will not just fight against COVID-19 but see the establishment of vaccine production for known illnesses and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics,” said the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Africa has so far been the least affected region by the pandemic, with 4.3 million cases recorded, including 114,000 deaths in an overall population of 1.2 billion, according to WHO figures.
Dr. Ghebreyesus noted that vaccines production needed to be scaled-up in countries where they are being produced with pharmaceutical companies being asked to share intellectual property rights, data and know-how in the manufacture of vaccines with Africa.
Rich countries and big pharmaceuticals were not sharing the vaccine know-how while African countries were paying double the price for vaccines than rich countries.No wonder the urgency for Africa to rise up and be counted in this fight after all most medical experts involved working from overseas were homegrown.
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