Africa Wants to Make Vaccines to Cut Costs

18 DEC, 2020 - 00:12 

NAIROBI. — Pharmaceutical companies should sell Covid-19 vaccines to African countries at discounted rates and allow them to be produced locally to potentially cut costs, the head of the continent’s disease control body said yesterday.

Africa is aiming to vaccinate up to 60 percent of its 1,3 billion people in the next two years, but may need several years of inoculations, John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told reporters.  How frequently people will need vaccinations against COVID-19 remains uncertain, he said.

“Because of this, local manufacturing becomes imperative so that we can meet our goals,” he said.

Many African states are relying on COVAX, a global Covid-19 vaccine allocation plan co-led by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which is working to lower prices for poor and middle income countries. But the Africa CDC expects to receive only 20 percent of its vaccine needs through COVAX, and also needs money to distribute the vaccine.

“The COVAX facility does not take care of delivery, it takes care of the buying of the vaccines. But the greatest challenge for any vaccination programme is how do you deliver it to the needy in a timely fashion.”

The continent was working with Afreximbank and the World Bank to raise funds to buy and deliver vaccines. 

— CGTN.