Category: Medicine

New York – The former Co-Chairs of the Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR), Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of Liberia, and Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, have expressed their deep concern at the slow pace of redistribution of COVID-19 vaccines from high income to low-income countries.

“The Independent Panel report recommended that high-income countries ensure that at least one billion doses of vaccines available to them were redistributed to 92 low- and middle-income countries by 1 September, and a further one billion doses by mid-2022”, President Sirleaf and Helen Clark said. “Ensuring that all those around the world most vulnerable to the impact of the virus, including healthcare workers, older people and those with significant comorbidities, can be vaccinated quickly is a critical step towards curbing the pandemic.”

The Co-Chairs noted that, to date, 99 million dose donations have been shipped via COVAX, out of which only 89 million have been shipped to the 92 Advance Market Commitment countries – far short of the one billion doses the Independent Panel has called for. “High-income countries have ordered over twice as many doses as are needed for their populations. Now is the time to show solidarity with those who have not yet been able to vaccinate their frontline health workers and most vulnerable populations. Reaching the goal of redistributing one billion doses by 1 September would be a vital step in protecting the five billion people aged 15 and over who live in low- and middle-income countries. The 600 million doses which have already been pledged now need to be delivered with urgency”, the Co-Chairs said.

The Co-Chairs also noted that there needs to be much more rapid action on increasing vaccine production in low- and middle-income countries. “Manufacturing capacity has to be increased and knowledge and technology shared in order to scale up production quickly. This pandemic has shown the global risks of locating the know-how and manufacturing facilities in just a handful of countries.”

“We welcome the announcement that a COVID mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub has been established in South Africa. More such announcements are needed. Low- and middle-income countries must be able to produce more of their own vaccines and thereby help increase in general the amount of vaccine available to the world”, the Co-Chairs said.

For more information, please contact secretariat@ipppr.org

Doses pledged to COVAX: https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/covid/covax/COVAX-Dose-Donation-Table.pdf

Source: World Health Organization

Participants of a G20 Compact with Africa meeting this week assessed Africa’s progress in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. “We are meeting at a pivotal time in the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world,” said Italian prime minister Mario Draghi.

The Compact with Africa is a G20 initiative that promotes macroeconomic, business and financing reforms to attract more private investment in Africa, including in infrastructure.

The conference brought together heads of state of the 12 Compact members and institutional partners, including the African Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It involved strategy discussions around attracting higher inflows of foreign direct investment to Africa and the urgent imperative to develop vaccine manufacture capability on the African continent. Securing the continent’s recovery from the impacts of Covid-19 is one of the Compact’s near-term objectives.

Vaccine inequity was a recurring theme, and heads of state shared reforms that they had undertaken as part of the initiative. Closer international cooperation was urged to address climate change, debt levels and investment shortfalls.

President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa emphasized that “Africa will not be able to recover until Africans are vaccinated.” President Emmanuel Macron said France had committed to providing $10 million vaccine doses for Africa.

African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina said the African Development Bank had committed to investing $5 billion to support vaccine manufacturing across Africa, while World Bank President David Malpass highlighted vaccine financing programs set up in 54 countries, noting that more than half of these are in Africa.

African leaders expressed consensus on the need for vaccine self-sufficiency as a longer-term solution. President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana said there should have been lessons learned from Ebola. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen drew attention to the initiative to develop mRNA technology in Africa across different regional hubs.

African Development Bank President Adesina referred to gains made by Compact members. “We have seen a lot of improvement in public private partnerships and in the cost and ease of doing business but also in terms of the companies that are investing in a lot of African countries.” He also underscored the African Continental Free Trade Area and its expected impacts.

Other constraints discussed included rising levels of debt and restricted fiscal space resulting from the pandemic. “The reduction of liquidity,” hit us hard,” said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. Although Ghana sustained growth through 2020, President Akufo-Addo acknowledged that national debt had risen to 77.1% of GDP.

Many speakers noted that reforms were yielding results. The IMF’s Georgieva said that Compact countries outperform their peers. Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said his country had stabilized its debt through prudent management and opened up its telecom sector for investment.

A virtual session held on the sidelines of the conference provided a forum for German and African private sector representatives to discuss investment opportunities on the continent.

The Conference also included a follow-up session that focused on how to overcome economic, skills and intellectual property constraints to developing domestic mRNA vaccine manufacture across Africa.

Source: African Development Bank

WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States is shipping more than two million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Algeria, Ghana and Yemen, the White House said, boosting efforts to combat a third wave of the pandemic across Africa.

The shipments, which a White House official said would land before the end of this week, will be the first donated by the United States to all three countries. They come on the heels of recent deliveries to other countries on the continent, including Nigeria and hard-hit South Africa last month.

Taken from surplus in the US stockpile, 604,800 doses of Johnson & Johnson will go to Algeria, just over 1.2 million doses of Moderna to Ghana, and another 151,200 J&J doses to Yemen, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

All the shipments are being made through Covax, the distributor backed by the World Health Organization and the Gavi vaccine alliance.

President Joe Biden, who took office promising to focus on getting Americans vaccinated after suffering the world’s highest toll from coronavirus, has since expanded his goal to make the United States the vaccine “arsenal” internationally.

The “administration understands that putting an end to this pandemic requires eliminating it around the world,” the White House official said.

Biden has come under fire for authorizing Americans to get booster shots starting in September, but US officials say there is enough capacity, even while maintaining the flow of donations abroad.

The latest shipments will raise the total number of US shots delivered in Africa to more than 25 million, the official said.

Africa is in the grip of a third wave of infections and losing the race to mass vaccination.

Less than two percent of people across the continent are fully vaccinated, with some countries having to destroy unused shots because they lack the health infrastructure to administer them or have met strong vaccine hesitancy.

Ghana, with a population of around 32 million, was initially hailed as a model for coronavirus response, even using drones to deliver vaccines to remote areas. Ghana was also the first country to get vaccines through Covax in February.

However, less than three percent of the population is estimated to have been fully vaccinated. The Covid death toll of 982, reported to the World Health Organization, is believed to be underestimated due to lack of testing.

Algeria, which has close relations with Moscow and was an early recipient of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, is also struggling to get shots in arms. According to WHO figures, there have been 5,063 Covid deaths in the country of 43 million people.

There is a lack of reliable pandemic data from Yemen, already on its knees from war and poverty. The devastated nation of 30 million relies on vaccine donations but also suffers from threadbare healthcare infrastructure.

The White House says about 130 million doses have so far been distributed from the United States to 90 countries.

In addition to dipping into its surplus supplies, the US government has purchased 500 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses specifically for distribution to the African Union and 92 selected low-income countries. The United States also donated $2 billion to Covax.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

A World Health Organization official said Thursday that the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on the continent appeared to be stabilizing, but numbers of infections are still very high, with almost 248,000 new cases reported in the past week alone.

During a virtual briefing on the status of the pandemic in Africa, WHO Africa Regional Director Matshidiso Moeti said that 24 countries were seeing a resurgence of infections and that deaths were rising in eight countries.

She said, “This is a preventable tragedy if African countries can get fair access to the vaccines.”

Moeti said the good news was that 13 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the past week, triple that of the previous week. She said many of the doses came from donations and sharing arrangements through the WHO-administered COVAX vaccine cooperative.

She said 117 million doses were due to arrive in Africa in the coming month. But to meet the goal of having at least 10 percent of the continent vaccinated by the end of September, she said, another 34 million doses will be needed.

The WHO Africa director urged nations with ample supplies to keep sharing doses. She said, “With international solidarity we can protect those at highest risk of COVID-19 in all countries in the world.”

She also encouraged African governments to ensure that staffing and financial resources were available when shots arrived “to get vaccines into the arms of our populations. No precious doses should be wasted.”

Source: Voice of America