By Chioma Iruke
The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged the African continent not to rely entirely on import of vaccines from the rest of the world, even as the organization stated that the continent had inequitable distribution of the vaccines.
The WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, made the call on Tuesday at the 2021 UBA Africa Day Celebration held via zoom.
The WHO Director while stating that it was important for Africa not to let down their guard, as it could be affected like many other countries, added that although Africa has not been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic like many other countries of the world, the poor economies and business has been the most vulnerable.
He stated that the vaccination in the continent was low, with just a little ‘over 25million dozes or 1.5 persons of the global total’.
“WHO is working day in day out to bring immediate solutions for the equitable distribution of vaccine doses. But it is clear that Africa cannot rely solely on the importation of vaccines from the rest of the world.
“We must build that capacity not only for covid-19 but for other vaccines and medical products, the corporation for private and public sector would be essential in this area,” the WHO added.
He added that the WHO was working with the African Union (AU) to establish the Africa Medicines Agency where they would continue their financial and technical support.
Also speaking at the event, the Director-General, World Trade Organization (WTO) Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, advised that the African continent mobilize youths productively to try to recover from the pandemic, and emphasized the importance of correcting the vaccine inequity in the world today.
“But if we are to recover from this we crisis we have to correct the vaccine inequity that is so obvious in the world today.
“The fact that we have vaccinate so little of our population today is not acceptable the fact as Dr. Tedros mentioned that we import 90% of our vaccine and 90% of our pharmaceutical is also not acceptable.
“Going back to our vaccines, the IMF just mentioned that if we spend $15bn additional to vaccinate 40% of the population by 2021 and up to 60% by 2022.
“We would be able to reverse this vaccine inequity and the world can actually gain $9trn dollars by 2025. I mean the figures are staggering, I mean compare 50bn to 9trn that we could make if we did it right. Because I’m a finance minister, we could get additional 1tn in taxes.
“It’s important to the world that we reverse this vaccine inequity and Africa benefits from it, we cannot recover sustainably without it. We have to fight for it whether it’s getting more vaccines in from outside production or manufacturing our own, the WTO stands ready to do its bit to keep supply chain open for this manufacture,” she said.
In the same vein, Rwanda’s President, Paul Kagame advised other African leaders to invest in improving their health care systems, so as to limit the effects of any sudden pandemic.
“We should learn from this shock to invest more of our budget in our national health system. The private sector of course has a big role to play in this. This is not the last global crisis and the next one should not catch Africa unprepared,” he said.
