The Serum Institute of India has provided US$2.5 million to the African Union’s Covid-19 Commission to bolster its investment into an African health workforce, the South African presidency said on Wednesday.
The donation, received by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his capacity as the AU’s Covid-19 Champion, is expected to help to implement the mandate to establish an AU Health Workforce Task Team (AU-HWTT), the presidency said.
The AU-HWWT would undertake the programmatic work, public engagement and consensus building towards a fit-for-purpose health workforce that can sustain universal health coverage in Africa.
“I am pleased to see that Serum, as the producer of medical countermeasures, understands that it is the health workforce that delivers these life-saving tools to the people,” Ramaphosa said.
He added: “We welcome this contribution to kick start the continental health workforce initiative and call on businesses, donors, and other investors to follow Serum’s example.”
Ramaphosa also announced the introduction to Africa of the oral therapeutic Paxlovid drug that can now be purchased by the AU member states at cost price.
Paxlovid is cheaper than other oral therapeutics, reduces death and hospitalisation by 89%, is easy to administer, has few side effects, and works against the Omicron variant.
Serum chief executive Adar Poonawalla said his institute had a long history of providing healthcare support in Africa.
This included billions of affordable routine vaccines against diseases such as measles and polio, and the development of new vaccines to protect against meningitis and malaria, Poonawalla said.
“The coronavirus pandemic has taught us the need, not only for life-saving medicines, but for the life-saving healthcare workers to administer them as well,” Poonawalla said.
This donation to the AU-HWTT marked the first step in the building of the African healthcare workforce of the future, he added.
NM/jn/APA