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By Joyce Mukucha
The unprecedented times brought by the global Covid-19 pandemic has caused African countries to struggle with limited access to vaccines to cater for their populations with the major reason being failure by the continent’ most nations to produce their own medicines.
Meanwhile, many developing countries have not been able to deliver even one dose to most of their populations.
Against this background, a call has been made for African countries to make concerted efforts in ensuring that steps are taken to manufacture the vaccines needed to protect their populations against diseases that may affect the continent and break the dependence cycle.
Speaking during a recent virtual cross-border media science café, supported by AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC), the Head of Science and Innovation (Biovac) and the Executive Director African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative, Patrick Tippo said Africa lacks of capacity in vaccine manufacturing industry.
Tippo has with more than 30 years of experience in the vaccine manufacturing industry. He has worked with BioVac, a public-private partnership in South Africa since its inception in 2003.
Africa, he highlighted, produces <1 percent of its own vaccine needs as he pointed out that in 2021, there was no African (pandemic) flu vaccine manufacturing capacity.
He said African nations urgently need to follow regulatory frameworks and redesign vaccine procurement procedures so that they can be able to produce medicines for themselves.
“When it comes to vaccine manufacturing, it is important for African countries to be acknowledged. There is need to break the cycle of dependency and take progressive actions to ensure that as a continent, Africa remain visible by ensuring that Iocally vaccines are available, accessible and affordable,” said Tippo.
Pertaining markets, Tippo highlighted that to was imperative for Africa to work tirelessly to ensure that they become competent to secure a wide vaccine market.
“Concerning the markets in Africa, it is the pivotal issue which require sustainability of vaccine demand certainty and market formation. African countries need a market that will guarantee to purchasing of locally made vaccines (Advanced Manufacturing Commitments) as well as pooled procurement from African vaccine manufacturers.
Referring to the Vaccine Manufacturing and Procurement in Africa study, Tippo said it was found out that there is limited space for multiple major players in the vaccine production field in Africa.
He pointed out that strengthened support and development of necessary ecosystem to establish a viable, competitive and and sustainable manufacturing capability was imperative for Africa.
“A number of regional hubs could be established and require the right level of political and technical support, a clear well-founded and coherent regional policymaking and planning approach.”
Explaining on World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waivers, patents, intellectual property rights working for other countries, a global health advocate, Asia Russell, Executive Director, Health for Global Access Project said there was a proposal from South Africa and India to the WTO requesting that countries be allowed to walve certain Intellectual property rights they typically uphold as part of the WTO TRIPS, until the majority of the world population receives effective vaccines and develops immunity to Covid-19.
Giving an overview of key issues that needed to captured from the presentations by the two experts, media practitioners suggested the need for African to develop strong technology and embrace world’s solutions to ensure that the dependency cycle is broken.