COMMENT: Vibrant drug manufacturing industry way to go

Africa imports 70 to 90 percent of all medical drugs consumed locally, and likely more when it comes to vaccines.

Now, with the coronavirus infecting and taking the lives of hundreds of thousands, African governments and their respective private sectors are under immense pressure to begin to spend billions importing vaccines to contain Covid-19.

While some well-resourced governments on the continent are spending own resources, others that are less well-resourced will have no choice but take up debt to be able to finance the critical obligation of importing vaccines to be able to immunise their people.

Many studies have been undertaken over the years on how Africa could develop a domestic drug manufacturing industry and rely less on importation from countries such as India and the US as well as Europe.

Findings have differed on whether a local pharmaceutical industry would be viable or not but there is no question that the continent has to meet a larger fraction of its medical needs, larger than the 30 percent cited by most papers.

A 2018 report says that while about 17 percent of the global population lives in Africa, the continent produces less than one percent of all the world’s vaccines.

The same report indicates that in 2014 alone, African governments spent almost US$900 million importing vaccines for basic child immunisation. If they were produced locally, up to 30 percent of that spending would remain on the continent.

We feel challenged that Africa’s participation in the development of Covid-19 vaccines has been minimal. We have had some of us celebrating when a scientist, born in their country but educated abroad, got involved in the making of a vaccine in their adopted country. Also, the continent has been used for trials of some vaccines.

However, having minimally participated in vaccine development, the continent has started participating hugely as a market for Western or Indian-manufactured products.

That must end. Africa needs to continue fighting hard to meet its critical needs such as medical drugs and vaccines. That some among us have voiced their fears over the Covid-19 vaccines that are being made in the West indicates the dangers, and insecurities that arise when we entrust our health, nay, lives in the hands of others.

President Mnangagwa, speaking on Saturday on the African Union’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic on the continent enunciated the criticality of a local drug manufacturing industry.

“Efforts by the private sector and other stakeholders to mobilise and set up platforms on which Member States of the Union can procure the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), diagnostic equipment and vaccines are equally commendable.

We also hail the Afreximbank which will avail financial facilities to enable countries to purchase their Covid-19 contingencies. I concur with the proposal for more robust strategies to deal with future pandemics and the need to strengthen and review statutes of the Africa CDC to enable it to fully perform its task.

I equally support the call for Africa to develop our own pharmaceutical industry drawing from our rich heritage-based scientific knowledge and competent scientists. Zimbabwe further supports calls for the establishment of the Africa Medicine Agency,” he said.

The President is right.

Hopefully, his remarks will push the continent to expedite the execution of a long-mooted plan for the development of a larger pharmaceutical industry on the continent.

In 2007, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, now the African Union Development Agency saw the need for Africa to arrest its over-reliance on imported pharmaceutical products when it drafted the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa (PMPA), as mandated in the Assembly of AU Heads of State decision two years earlier.

Five years after it was crafted, Heads of State endorsed the PMPA’s business plan which consists of a range of solutions to some of the challenges working against the development of a local pharmaceutical industry.

Some of the solutions advanced include strengthening the regulatory systems and establishing a one-stop shop for information, data and business intelligence for industry players, creation of larger markets and the like.

That a plan exists is good but 16 years since African leaders saw the need for a more vibrant drug making industry on the continent we are still without one. Covid-19 must push governments and the private sector on the continent to work hard towards local production of medical drugs, vaccines and consumables.