![]() Rather African countries should develop their capability to manufacture and distribute medicines and vaccines.įor Africa to enhance its capacity to address emerging pandemics and diseases, countries have recognised their need to expand their capacity to manufacture vaccines and medicines. However, simply expanding the importation of COVID-19 vaccinations to African countries cannot be considered a long-term solution. This is demonstrating the need to have its manufacturing capacity and infrastructure for vaccines and medicines to address access to medication and enhance cost-effectiveness for the continent’s citizenry.Īfrica's reliance on other countries for medicines and vaccines and its poor vaccine manufacturing capabilities contribute significantly to the continent's inadequacy in addressing these prevalent diseases and pandemics. For example, Africa is importing almost 99% of vaccinations for diseases, and over 95% of medications, despite consuming approximately 25% of the world's vaccine production. Remarkedly, African countries are significantly relying on the importation of diagnostics, medications, vaccines, personal protective equipment, and other medical supplies to manage these diseases. įigure 1: Africa’s Lack of Access to COVID-19 Vaccines Thus, the continent that did not initiate COVID-19 and effectively used limited resources to keep deaths and infections below global averages may suffer severely from the pandemic's socio-economic repercussions due to difficulties surrounding vaccine access (see figure 1). Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in over 12.38 million cases of infection and approximately 257 thousand deaths between February 2020 and October 2022 across the African continent. ![]() For example, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa between 20 resulted in over 11,000 fatalities. According to reports, thousands of children under the age of five die each year as a result of diseases such as malaria. Diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and other illnesses have spread rapidly. The prevalence of infectious diseases are particularly elevated in Africa because of environmental factors and limited health infrastructure such as health facilities and services. ![]() This is the 1st post in a blog series to be published in 2023 by the Secretariat on behalf of the AU High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) and the Calestous Juma Executive Dialogues (CJED) Science and Technology and Innovation Hub.Human Capital and Institutions Development.
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