Africa launched a new era of vaccine sovereignty this week, when government and industry leaders convened in Addis Ababa to map out a vaccine manufacturing strategy for the continent.
At the meeting, the AU announced a partnership with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to establish five vaccine production sites (one each in North, East, West, Southern and Central Africa).
John Nkengasong, the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said that within 20 years Africa must endeavour to manufacture 60% of vaccines used on the continent.
This initiative is vitally important.
Covid-19 has made it clear that Africa cannot depend on donors to meet its vaccine and medicine needs. It is time to do things differently: to assemble the partnerships and commit the resources to develop African vaccine-manufacturing capacity.
This can be done as quickly and effectively as the rise of the African telecommunications industry, which in one generation moved Africa from obscurity on the telecoms map to being fully integrated into the digital and telecoms world.
As a public health and development expert who has worked on every major infectious disease epidemic the continent has faced in the past 20 years, I am keenly aware of Africa’s current vulnerability.
The continent, with 1.3-billion people, produces less than 1% of the human vaccines it needs. This capacity deficit, coupled with the mad rush for available Covid-19 vaccines produced elsewhere, has left Africa with very little to rely on.
As a consequence, whereas some rich countries are set to vaccinate their entire adult populations in half a year’s time, the majority of Africa’s low-income countries will not have widespread vaccination coverage before 2023.