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Roselyne Sachiti
Features, Health and Society Editor
Covid-19 has reignited the conversation on vaccine accessibility, equity and equality in Africa.
At a time the third wave has become a reality with an increase in positive cases, many African countries have been caught between a rock and a hard surface.
Making the situation unbearable for Africa is the sad reality of vaccine nationalisation by rich countries, which has starved off most developing nations globally.
Facts are stubborn.
For a start, Africa received vaccines later than other regions of the world and in limited quantity.
With over 80 percent of Covid-19 vaccines that have been administered globally being taken up by high- and upper-middle-income countries, only 0.2 percent have gone to low-income countries, African included.
With African countries left with no choice but extend the begging bowl to rich countries that are preoccupied with saving their own populations, save for a few like China, Inidia and Russia, home grown solutions are urgently needed to ensure equity if herd immunity is to be achieved on the continent.
The conversation on vaccine development on the African continent to ensure equitable distribution therefore becomes more relevant than ever.
At the launch of the Coalition for Dialogue on Africa (CoDA) Independent Task Team on Equitable and Universal Access to Vaccines and Vaccination in Africa last week, the chorus was the same, it is time for Africa to come together and manufacture its own vaccines.
While it may be too little too late for Africa to find its own Covid-19 vaccine, the continent, which is burdened by diseases like HIV and Aids, tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, typhoid among others, has taken the first steps towards self sufficiency.
CoDA executive director, Ms Souad Aden Osman, said there is need for Africa to localise its solutions.
“We have been hit by an unprecedented scourge, Covid-19, which has crippled the world, but we are coming out as if we were the worst unprepared continent,” she pointed out.
According to Aden Osman, the initiative will support the African Union in its efforts to enable participation of the African private sector, the civil society and other stakeholders in vaccine research and development using established African Union policy instruments.
“We are recognising fully that the international community does not have to take responsibility of what is happening on the African continent, and we cannot make everything a charity case. We cannot make everything that is important to us, what cripples our economies,” said Aden Osman.
Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, who is also the Chairman of the CoDA Board of Directors, said Africa’s main challenge was not the lack of funds or resources, but the inability to harness available resources to provide customised home-grown solutions needed to address the challenges seen across the continent.
He said many African researchers, doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers were constantly being drawn out of the continent to serve elsewhere.
According to Zimbabwean academic, and former deputy Prime Minister Professor Arthur Mutambara, African countries should no longer depend on the global north, Europe and America for vaccine production.
“WHO is controlled by Europe and America. Sputnik is better than Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, yet it has not yet received emergency use listing by WHO,” he pointed out.
Going forward, he added, Africa should have its own mechanisms and systems of vaccine certification either as the African Union, Southern African Development Community (SADC) or Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), among others.
“We look at the vaccines, do the clinical trials and be able to say our vaccines are effective and be able to use them. The EU medicine board does approvals for the EU, Turkey does its own approvals. We must not be beholden to WHO. We must not wait for WHO certification, and as Africans must have our own systems of certifying vaccines,” he pointed out.
He said Africa should start manufacturing its own vaccines.
“Going forward, we do not want to see European and American vaccines on the continent, we want to do research and development we want to manufacture our own vaccines.
“We are only producing 1 percent of the vaccines we need the continent. We want to produce 100 percent of vaccines on the continent and be able to export them,” said Prof Mutambara.
Vaccines and vaccination is not only about health, but economics.
“Can you imagine the amount of money big pharmaceuticals like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Mordena among others are making from vaccines? We want Africa to be part of the business of producing vaccines. We want Africa to be part of that commerce so we can drive our prosperity. Additionally, we want to sell our vaccines to Europe,” he said.
He also called on African countries to ensure the safety, health and welfare of citizens by funding research and development on the production of vaccines within the continent. Prof Mutambara said while the continent maybe behind schedule to develop Covid-19 vaccine, this is not the case for other diseases.
“It has been a wake-up call. We maybe too late for Covid-19, what about malaria, HIV, and sickle cell anaemia, other diseases ravaging the continent?”
He called upon Africa to create an enabling environment for the private sector to play a role in manufacturing vaccines.
Prof Mutambara urged African countries to fund healthcare with a minimum of 15 percent as set by the 2001 Abuja Declaration.
“To be part of the roll-out strategy of vaccination, 15 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of every African country must go to health. We must control the agenda and not continue to depend on donors,” he said.
President of the Pan African Manufacturers Association an executive director at Dangote Group, Mansur Ahmen, said while other regions have established their own vaccines and able to take care of themselves, Africa has to depend on supply of these vaccines even for the most basic inputs
“In 2020 our pharmaceutical sector was almost shut down because we could not get basic pharmaceutical ingredients that we need to make even the most basic drugs. Some countries stopped exporting materials to us.”
He said with the Covid-19 pandemic, the race for vaccines started and Africa still has to depend for supply.
“We all, know that even some of those countries in Africa that have managed to buy the vaccines are not getting them because the countries that are manufacturing the vaccines want to use what they have first. America has vaccinated almost 300 million people, China almost one billion, Europe most of their citizens, but in Africa we are talking about less than 2 percent,” he noted.
Igbinedion University Teaching Hospital chief medical director, Prof Godwin Bazuaye, who is also a stem cell transplantologist, pointed out that Africa spends over US$1,5 billion on vaccines.
He said it was critical to train Africans on research and development and manufacturing and distribution of vaccines.
“That is why the hospital is setting up a centre of excellence to look at research and manufacturing of vaccines.
“We are ready to work with CODA to ensure that Africa has its vaccine soon and that Africans are trained to manufacture vaccines,” he said.
Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki said the recent outbreak Covid-19 across the globe has caused nations and leaders the world over to rethink the importance of effective measures for the control of communicable diseases, of which vaccination still ranks as perhaps the most efficient and sustainable intervention.
“Vaccines have helped the world to deal with various debilitating ailments and potentially devastating infections and diseases that could have spiralled into pandemics and spelled global doom, such as polio, small pox, meningitis, pneumonia and diarrhoea, among several others. Most of these ailments have either been totally eradicated or brought under firm control with the help of vaccines.
“But unfortunately, for Africa, the full benefits of vaccines have not been brought to bear in the management of diseases and infections. This is even as the evidence of its efficacy in curtailing deadly infections in other parts of the world abound,” he said.
He noted that by March 2021, one year after the shutdown of the global economy with the outbreak of Covid-19, less than 2 percent of the about 1.4 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines given globally has reached Africa.
He said the launch of an Independent Task Team on Equitable and Universal Access to Vaccines and Vaccination in Africa — the initiative of CoDA and partners, is therefore coming at a time in the global history of vaccines and vaccinations when there have been outcries about inequities in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
“These inequities have been variously described as ‘shameful’, ‘scandalous, and ‘a crisis within a crisis,” he added.
He added that it was heart-warming that CoDA and the African Union, the African Export Import Bank, with Igbinedion University are set to address health system challenges in Africa in a bid to achieve equitable access to vaccines and vaccination across the continent.
African Union Commission Deputy Chair Dr Monique Nsanzabaganwa said strengthening Africa’s health systems requires convergence of the private sector, policy makers and the community, civil society, and healthcare practitioners.
“The private sector initiative being launched today as a partnership between the CoDA, Igbinedion University Teaching Hospital, Pan African Manufacturing Association, and other partners is a wake up call to other private universities and businesses in Africa to contribute to towards strengthening healthcare services across the continent,” she said.
Dr Nsanzabaganwa also urged the sector to strengthen health facilities for business to thrive.
“Strengthening healthcare provision is not just about making donations, it must include addressing the root causes of our healthcare problems, one of which is research and development,” she said.
“I salute the courage of the founders and management of Igbinedion University for accepting the challenge to champion efforts to strengthen vaccine research, development and manufacturing in Africa and call on other private sector players in Africa to join the coalition by making meaningful investments in vaccine research and development on the continent.”
For Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, there is need to address the challenge of vaccine hesitancy.
“As we push for Covid-19 vaccines for the continent, we must also address the question of hesitancy, even among health workers who I hereby implore to use their positions to advocate for, and promote vaccine uptake, in view of the Covid-19 resurgence in the African region. As we fight the disease, we must translate lessons to policies to save lives and livelihoods, said Dr Ehanire.
Africa’s voice is becoming louder, what is left is to translate the words to action.
Online Reporter