Vaccine apartheid: Why the world won’t beat the pandemic if Africa is left behind
On 1 March, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire became the first African countries to begin COVID-19 vaccination campaigns using doses acquired through COVAX, a global collaborative effort led by WHO and Gavi to provide equitable access to vaccines to developing countries. While the effort to provide these countries access to vaccines through the COVAX facility has been welcomed and celebrated, the continent has yet to gain access to the 1.5 billion doses it needs to vaccinate 60% of its population by June 2022. At least 10 African countries, including Tanzania, Burundi, Eritrea, Cameroon, and Chad, have yet to receive vaccines.
While rich nations are vaccinating one person every second, the majority of poor countries around the world, especially those in Africa, are struggling to vaccinate a fraction of their population. Vaccine hoarding by rich countries is creating a vaccine inequality inequality and is putting lives across the globe at risk.
An additional obstacle that is standing in the way of developing countries getting access to COVID-19 vaccines is the push by pharmaceutical companies to issue patents for the vaccines that have been approved for widespread use. Earlier this month, South Africa and India called on the World Trade Organization (WTO) to suspend intellectual property (IP) rights related to COVID-19 vaccines to allow generic or other manufacturers to make more vaccines. They were joined by over 80 developing countries, advocacy groups, and the African Union but these efforts to waive IP rights were blocked by rich nations like the US, UK, Switzerland and EU nations.
Pharmaceutical companies are also lobbying the US to block the campaign being led by South Africa and India. In a letter addressed to US President Joe Biden, the country’s leading pharmaceutical companies defended the need to have COVID vaccines patented arguing that there is no evidence that patenting vaccines will hinder the global response to the pandemic, and that a move to waive IP rights will stifle innovation. But in a recent article for The Guardian, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom, rejected the claims saying, “waiving patents temporarily won’t mean innovators miss out. Like during the HIV crisis or in a war, companies will be paid royalties for the products they manufacture.”
In Africa, China is working to fill the vaccine access void, through their vaccine diplomacy. So far, China has donated thousands of vaccines to thirteen African countries, and its support has been welcomed by the Africa Center for Disease Control (CDC). But the head of Africa CDC, Dr. John Nkengasong also cautioned against using vaccine diplomacy for political influence, saying that “Africa will refuse to be that playing ground where we use COVID as a tool to manage relationships.”
Greed and profit are fueling the vaccine inequality that Africad continues to face today, reminiscent of the HIV response. COVID-19 won’t be defeated by leaving half of the global population unvaccinated. Rich nations must step up and do their part in supporting equitable distribution of the vaccine. In addition to supporting COVAX, wealthier nations can also share their expertise and transfer technology for scalable manufacturing of the COVID vaccine, and help countries help themselves. They can do this by supporting efforts of developing countries to have IP rights of COVID vaccines waived.
The global pandemic needs a global solution. If the world is to see an end to COVID-19, it is critical that regions like Africa are not left behind in the race to acquire vaccines.
Nani Detti,
Communications Intern,
Africa Program
