Browsing: Vaccines

A Covid-19 vaccine. Africa’s vaccine manufacturing capacity is badly affected by its reliance on imports. www.theexchange.africa

Pandemic jolts Africa’s vaccine manufacturing

Manufacturing

On Thursday, May 13, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) disclosed that African countries had acquired 38.03 million Covid-19 vaccines thus far. 

For a continent with close to 1.5 billion people, the acquisition is at snail’s pace, sporadic and at best remains a lengthy process that may never be completed to successfully cover every African citizen in need of the vaccine. 

Out of the 38 million doses, 22.4 million doses had been administered corresponding to a coverage rate of 1.48 per cent of the continent. Only five out of the 55 African nations had administered most of the doses of the Covid-19 vaccine respective to their populations.…

Tiksa Negeri Credit REUTERS

African Union holds global conference to accelerate African vaccine development and manufacturing capacity

News Room

African leaders assembled at a global meeting to discuss the status of local pharmaceutical manufacturing on the continent, underscored the need to increase local production of vaccines and therapeutics to achieve greater public-health security.

“The production of vaccines and access to vaccines is an absolute priority,” Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa, said Monday in opening remarks at the start of the two-day virtual meeting, convened by the African Union.

The meeting was attended by several African heads of state, health, finance, and trade ministers from across the continent, as well as officials from global financial institutions, foundations, pharmaceutical manufacturers, business leaders, and the general public. The African Development Bank was represented by Solomon Quaynor, Vice President Private Sector, Infrastructure, and Industrialization.

Although Africa consumes approximately one-quarter of global vaccines by volume, it manufactures less than 1% of its routine vaccines, with almost no outbreak vaccine manufacturing in place. The

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Covid Vaccine- Freepik

Thinking Investments, Thinking Covid-19 Vaccination 

Health

Debt service is putting tremendous pressure on East African governments because of limited foreign exchange earnings; therefore the Covid-19 vaccination program for East Africa will give investors confidence in most sectors especially agriculture and tourism which are major foreign exchange earners for the region.

The foreign exchange gains will lead to a positive trickle-down effect to the different businesses and general population.…