Why isn't Africa producing vaccines?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 3 August 2021
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Less than two percent of Africa’s population has been vaccinated against Covid-19. Could homegrown vaccines be the solution? If so, why isn’t it happening? Is it an issue with patents and intellectual property rights? Is big pharma standing in the way? Or is it simply about money and profits?
Things are beginning to happen. Last month a consortium was set up with the aim of opening an mRNA technology transfer hub in South Africa. If they succeed it will be the first regional mRNA vaccine manufacturing production facility in Africa.
In this edition of Business Daily, Tamasin Ford hears from Marie-Paule Kieny, the chair of the Governance Board of the Medicines Patent Pool, Toyin Abiodun from the Tony Blair Global Institute for Change, based in Rwanda, and from Petro Terblanche, the Managing Director of Afrigen, the South African biotech company where the first African vaccines will hopefully be produced.
(Producer: Joshua Thorpe)
(Image: Health workers prepare a dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine during a mass vaccination campaign against the Covid-19, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Credit: Getty Images.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Tamerson Ford. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:06.8 | Africa is the most unvaccinated continent in the world. Could homegrown vaccines be the solution? |
| 0:14.3 | The argument is, well, you know, why do you need this local production? But then the answer is from the country, |
| 0:20.5 | we cannot afford to continue to be |
| 0:23.1 | at the mercy of some commercial powers. And we want to be able to produce ourselves. Moves are |
| 0:30.6 | being made to make COVID vaccine production within Africa a reality. But is big farmers standing in |
| 0:37.1 | the way? |
| 0:37.9 | I cannot see us not succeed. I can only say this. If Moderna and Pfizer decided not to share |
| 0:44.5 | in a responsible, sustainable manner, we'll find a way and do it ourselves. |
| 0:48.6 | In today's Business Daily from the BBC, we take a look at the growing calls for countries |
| 0:54.1 | in Africa to start making |
| 0:56.2 | mRNA vaccines. Fewer people in Africa have been vaccinated against coronavirus than any other continent |
| 1:06.4 | in the world. Our greatest barrier to overcoming this pandemic really remains vaccine inequity. |
| 1:13.0 | We cannot get ahead of the virus if vaccines are not reaching a significant proportion of the |
| 1:18.6 | population. That's Dr. Mitsidi Simweti, the World Health Organization's regional director for Africa, |
| 1:25.4 | speaking at a press conference last week. |
| 1:27.7 | The African continent has fallen far behind the rest of the world in terms of vaccination. |
| 1:33.1 | Just 21 million people, or 1.6% of the continent's population, are fully vaccinated. |
| 1:40.4 | Africa still needs more than 700 million doses to reach the 30% year end target. |
| 1:46.6 | Compare that to Europe, for example, where fully vaccinated rates are closer to 60%. |
| 1:52.6 | In fact, eight out of every 10 COVID-19 vaccines have gone into the arms of people living in high and upper middle income countries. |
| 2:03.1 | Kenya's president, Ahuru Kaniata, says they've been victims of vaccine nationalism. |
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