COVID-19 agency: What Africa and its diaspora should do and how

and related drugs and manufacture these products in Africa. This will be cheaper than receiving pre-manufactured drugs. It will also address the challenges of transport, storage and other logistical concerns in the movement of the drugs from the global north to Africa. This is a long-term strategy to develop the capacity to supply the entire continent with all its drug requirements. African needs to strive towards drug selfsufficiency and the time to develop that capacity is now.

5) Building in-country capacity to develop, manufacture and service COVID-19-related equipment and technologies such as ventilators, oxygen tanks, oxygen concentrators, diagnostics, PPE, testing facilities and contact tracing capacity.

6) Development of regional and continental research centres to study the virus, its mutation, transmissibility and disease pattern. The work such as that of Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya to detect local COVID-19 variants (through genome sequencing) must be enhanced, continentally leveraged and systematically replicated. The commendable efforts of Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) must be strengthened, heavily resourced and granted the requisite political commitment.

7) Revamping of and investment in healthcare facilities across the continent. COVID-19 has exposed the inadequacy and fragility of our healthcare systems. We have learnt valuable lessons that we must act on. Furthermore, we must build world-class hospitals across the continent. African elites must never travel outside Africa for treatment.

8) Building of world-class vaccine research and development capacity, so that in the case of future pandemics, we participate in vaccine development as Africans. The ineptitude of the COVID-19 experience must never be repeated.

9) Continent-wide co-ordination of systems and mechanisms to detect and eliminate counterfeit medicines, with respect to COVID-19 and in general.

10) Establishment of regional and continental research centres to investigate the efficacy of COVID-19 lockdowns and the impact of the pandemic on lives and livelihoods, leading to the formulation of appropriate policy responses for countries, regions and the continent.

How Africa and its diaspora can accomplish this agenda

The articulated plan is achievable if Africans work together in regional bodies such as Sadc, EAC, Comesa and Ecowas, but primarily as the African Union, while leveraging on the financial and global influence of the African diaspora and harnessing the vast resources of the African private sector. Of course, front and centre in this endeavour will be the African health experts and professionals, together with their research institutions such as universities and teaching hospitals. As Africans, we must emphasise regional and continental integration, which gives us the economies of scale to achieve our objectives. We must also share COVID-19 best practices, lessons and innovations across regions and the continent and minimise unproductive and disruptive competition among ourselves. The intellectual property of African knowledge systems and medicinal remedies must be protected and leveraged to benefit the continent and its people financially. There is a need for a change of mindset and a paradigm shift by the African from worshipping external medical solutions to embracing local remedies, including locally developed and manufactured drugs.

Some of the strategic activities that will enable us to attain the outlined COVID-19 African agency initiatives include the following:

1) Pooling of national (governmental) resources into regional and continental centres of medical excellence with specific mandates. Emphasis must be on regional and continental plans and strategies and not national ones.

2) A regionally funded — say Sadc — research laboratory into African COVID-19 remedies and their codification, including clinical trials of such solutions. Efforts such as those of Madagascar with its Artemisia annua COVID-19 drug must be embraced and supported by Africans and African institutions such as Africa CDC.

3) A vaccine efficacy and safety testing facility in each of the regional blocs (Sadc, EAC, Ecowas, etc). Regional centres of excellence must be established to run clinical trials for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.

4) AU-driven world-class drug manufacturing plants, one in West Africa, North Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa, all focusing on COVID-19 vaccines and other infectious agents and drugs. We must deliberately build African drug manufacturing capacity, and then approach those who have developed vaccines to partner with us and manufacture the vaccines on the continent. Collaboration such as that between SA’s Aspen Pharmacare and the US firm, Johnson & Johnson, must not be ad hoc but systematically motivated and incentivised by States, regional bodies and the AU.

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