By John Ikani
The World Trade Organization, WTO, says it is working with the European Union and other partners to help create regional vaccine manufacturing hubs in the continent.
This was made known by the Director-General of the WTO, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala during a virtual meeting on Monday.
According to her, the vaccine hubs will be created in South Africa, Senegal, and Rwanda, with Nigeria under consideration.
“We have now seen that over-centralization of vaccine production capacity is incompatible with equitable access in a crisis situation.
“Regional production hubs, in tandem with open supply chains, offer a more promising path to preparedness for future health crisis,” she said.
What you should know
The COVID-19 crisis has revived discussions on localising vaccine manufacturing to the African region to reduce the dependence on imports.
The fact that Africa is lagging so far behind on the COVID-19 vaccination compared with Europe and North America has highlighted the importance of the issue.
Most African countries depend on the WHO-sponsored COVAX scheme, which buys COVID-19 vaccines from manufacturers by pooling demand, thus enhancing their bargaining power.
It also offers discounts for least developed countries.
However, the scheme is underfunded and competes with national authorities procuring vaccines directly from the manufacturers, and thus lacking a secure supply.
Moreover, the supply shortage became worse when the Serum Institute of India, previously the main supplier to COVAX, focused on domestic needs when the pandemic spread in India.
