{"id":224437,"date":"2022-05-13T10:45:50","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T08:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/global-agencies-called-to-support-vaccine-manufacturing-in-africa\/"},"modified":"2022-05-13T10:45:50","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T08:45:50","slug":"global-agencies-called-to-support-vaccine-manufacturing-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/global-agencies-called-to-support-vaccine-manufacturing-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Global agencies called to support vaccine manufacturing in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on global agencies to assist in boosting the local manufacturing and production of COVID-19 vaccines by procuring vaccines and boosters from African manufacturers.<\/p>\n

The President was speaking in his capacity as the AU Champion for COVID-19 Response on Thursday at the second Global Summit on COVID-19.<\/p>\n

The continent\u2019s largest COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing plant opened in South Africa last year, and mRNA hubs for tech transfer have been opened in South Africa, Egypt, Senegal, Tunisia, Kenya and Nigeria.<\/p>\n

In February the AU Summit endorsed a common agenda for manufacturing vaccines, medicines, diagnostics, therapeutics and health products on the continent.<\/p>\n

However, the President said that this progress may be reversed because international agencies are not buying vaccines from Africa, even those destined for African countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis must change. Multilateral agencies and philanthropists need to be procuring vaccines and boosters from African manufacturers to ensure the developing capabilities on the continent are retained,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

President Ramaphosa further called on the international community to ensure that solidarity and equity underpin the next phase in the world\u2019s management of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis means that vaccines produced in Africa must be procured for Africa\u2019s people. This is vital for the continent\u2019s health security now and into the future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Low vaccination rates<\/strong><\/p>\n

To avoid a return to the catastrophic early days of the pandemic, President Ramaphosa said that there is a need to get many more people across the world vaccinated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to expand access to testing and treatment. The global health recovery will not be inclusive so long as millions of people in developing economies remain unvaccinated.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfrica has one of the world\u2019s lowest vaccination rates at 16%, and coverage in low income countries is still under 13%,\u201d the President said.<\/p>\n

President Ramaphosa emphasised that African leaders are committed to achieving 70% vaccine coverage through mass campaigns across the continent.<\/p>\n

He further said they continue to advocate for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to improve global access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get more life-saving vaccines to those in need, South Africa is donating five million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 10 million doses of the J&J vaccine to other African countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Africa has contributed $10 million to the Global Fund and plans to contribute financial support to the ACT-Accelerator,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the low COVID-19 testing rates, President Ramaphosa said that African Union (AU) member states have committed to a target of 200 million SARS-COV-2 tests by the end of 2022.<\/p>\n

This commitment will be coupled with the implementation of the Africa CDC’s Enhanced Surveillance Strategy for community-based testing, wastewater testing and sentinel surveillance.<\/p>\n

The President said countries need to be better prepared for future health crises and generate the financing to do so.<\/p>\n

The international community is working towards a swift social and economic recovery, but the threat of new waves and the emergence of new variants is ever-present.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Africa therefore supports the formation of the Financial Intermediary Fund as a mechanism to finance global health security,\u201d he said. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on global agencies to assist in boosting the local manufacturing and production of COVID-19 vaccines by procuring vaccines and boosters from African manufacturers. The President was speaking in his capacity as the AU Champion for COVID-19 Response on Thursday at the second Global Summit on COVID-19. The continent\u2019s largest COVID-19 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":224438,"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-224437","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-sanews","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/global-agencies-called-to-support-vaccine-manufacturing-in-africa.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224437","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=224437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}