AU in race to develop Covid-19 vaccine

THE African Union (AU)’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is accelerating Africa’s involvement in the development of a vaccine.

Further, the AU has said African participation in clinical trials is an important step in the wake of a spike in global Covid-19 cases signalling a second wave, hence the need for Africa to work tirelessly towards finding a cure. If Covid-19 continues to spread, the World Bank estimates that the sub-Saharan Africa economy will contract by between 2,1 and 5,1 percent in 2020, causing the first recession in the region in 25 years.

Experts say these statistics show how African nations need to collaborate and begin preparations for the development, access, and roll out of a vaccine.

“Africa has a long history of clinical trials participation for vaccines. It is critical to establish an overarching consortium for Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials with African representation in order to co-ordinate and facilitate partnerships between vaccine developers and African partners to complete clinical trials of selected Covid-19 vaccine candidates,” said the AU CDC in a statement.

“…support the development and identification of additional clinical trial sites across all sub-regions of the continent by building capacity and removing barriers.

“Strengthen enabling factors for running high-quality clinical trials for Covid-19 vaccines and other new technologies, and accelerate post-trial product regulatory decisions, roll out and uptake.”

The CDC said although vaccine manufacturing in Africa was promising, as of August only three countries on the continent were manufacturing and marketing human vaccines locally. However, the CDC said this was an opportunity for the continent to scale up African vaccine production to guarantee long-term self-sufficiency. “Support will be provided to high potential manufacturers to help facilitate the transfer of technology and intellectual property from outside of Africa, along with the requisite financing needed to help begin production in the long term.”