Chairperson of the African Union (AU), President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on the World Trade Organization to waiver specific Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) obligations related to the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 for a defined period.<\/p>\n
Together with India, South Africa has proposed a TRIPS waiver in response to the pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need more countries to support this initiative. This would enable countries in Africa and elsewhere to access active pharmaceutical ingredients and benefit from technology transfer, including the know-how to manufacture vaccines in Africa at a cheaper cost,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday afternoon, the President addressed a webinar on the Africa COVID-19 Vaccine Financing and Development Strategy, which was attended by Ministers of Health and Ministers of Finance of the AU Member States as well as experts, private sector leaders, and civil society representatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe task before us is to step up global solidarity to ensure equitable access to the vaccines. All countries must get vaccines and must get them speedily.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is vital to the global containment of COVID-19 that vaccination takes place in all countries and among all populations. No part of the world will be safe from COVID until all parts of the world are safe,\u201d the President said.<\/p>\n
He noted challenges of accessing vaccines for the Global South, particularly for Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe developed North, which has substantial financial resources, has purchased the largest stocks, while we in Africa are struggling to get our fair share. The painful irony is that some of the clinical trials for these vaccines were carried out in Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn other cases, vaccines are packaged right here on the continent, yet we struggle to access them for our populations,\u201c President Ramaphosa said.<\/p>\n
He said vaccine prices are high, and many countries may not afford to vaccinate enough of their population to achieve herd immunity.<\/p>\n
Effort to secure COVID-19 vaccine<\/strong><\/p>\n Earlier this month, the President convened a meeting of the African Union Bureau to discuss the work undertaken by the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is estimated that Africa will only be able to access around 20% of vaccines needed through the COVAX facility. We therefore found it necessary to complement this facility to ensure health workers are vaccinated soonest and countries reach herd immunity faster.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have secured a provisional 270 million vaccine doses for African countries through the Task Team. At least 50 million will be available from April to June 2021,\u201d the President said.<\/p>\n These doses are from three major suppliers namely, Pfizer, AstraZeneca through the Serum Institute of India and Johnson & Johnson.<\/p>\n As a result of the high cost of vaccines, the Task Team has arranged with Afreximbank to support member states who want to access these vaccines based on a whole-of-Africa approach.<\/p>\n \u201cShould countries submit firm offers, Afreximbank has committed to provide advance procurement commitment guarantees of up to US$2 billion to the manufacturers on behalf of member states.<\/p>\n \u201cThe AU team and the World Bank are collaborating to ensure that member states can have access to further funding,\u201d the President said.<\/p>\n Ramaphosa expressed appreciation for MTN\u2019S offer to donate $25 million to the vaccine programme of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) to immunise health workers in Africa.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is solidarity in action. We call upon other companies, both of African origin and offshore companies that do business in Africa, to do what MTN has done to contribute financially to enable African countries to immunise their target groups,\u201d the President said. \u2013SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chairperson of the African Union (AU), President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on the World Trade Organization to waiver specific Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) obligations related to the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 for a defined period. Together with India, South Africa has proposed a TRIPS waiver in response to the pandemic. \u201cWe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-178709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}