South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said Monday that the continent needs the skills and capacity to manufacture its own vaccines, as the continent lags behind other global regions in inoculating against Covid-19.
“Africa needs to harness its own continental capabilities and identify opportunities for collaboration across… countries,” Ramaphosa said at a vaccine production conference organized by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
Other countries outside the continent, he said, “could offer technological expertise, financing, and investment,” implying that India and Brazil could provide guidance on how their own generic pharmaceutical industries have developed.
“Capacity-building in the form of skills and knowledge transfer will also be required to ensure we can sustain local manufacturing,” Ramaphosa added.
According to the most recent Africa CDC figures, Africa has been the region least affected by the pandemic, with 4.35 million cases and 115,000 deaths out of a total population of 1.2 billion.
However, the slow pace of vaccinations has been attributed to a lack of supplies, a lack of funding, and logistical issues.
