While Africa has done much better than other world regions in containing the coronavirus pandemic, the continent needed to develop the skills and capacity to make its own vaccines for future pandemics, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said.
The president said this on Monday evening when he addressed a virtual two-day Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) conference on vaccine manufacturing which ends on Tuesday.
The president said Africa had the talent and the will to be able to manufacture the vaccines but resources remained a challenge.
This could be overcome, however, by forging alliances with investors from other countries like India and Brazil who are champions in making generic medicine using their well-established pharmaceutical industries.
India and Brazil “could offer technological expertise, financing and investment,” he said, adding: “We will also need capacity-building in the form of skills and knowledge transfer to ensure we can sustain local manufacturing.”
According to the latest figures from the Africa CDC, the continent has been the region least affected by the pandemic, with 4.35 million cases and 115,000 deaths among its largely youthful population of 1.2-billion.
But its slow pace of vaccinations has been blamed on inadequate supplies, lack of financing and logistical problems.
Ramaphosa, whose country is Africa’s worst hit by the pandemic, recently criticised developed countries for hogging vaccines, warning “vaccine apartheid must come to an end.”
NM/as/APA