Botswana Guardian

Sharing technology and supporting innovation is not just about equity

- BG Correspond­ent

Inequity has plagued the responses to harmful pathogens. Take COVID- 19: an unpreceden­ted 11.9 billion vaccine doses have been administer­ed worldwide, helping many countries turn the tide on the pandemic.

Yet more than 80 percent of people in Africa have not received one dose, some one and a half years since the first person was vaccinated. As long as this gap exists, we can’t protect the world against new virus variants and end the acute stage of this pandemic. Thanks to groundbrea­king innovation, effective vaccines were developed in record time to protect against COVID- 19. However, at the outset of the vaccinatio­n drive, a concentrat­ion of vaccine and other health technology production was seen in a few, mostly rich, countries. Poorer nations ended up at the back of the queue. The situation

has since changed, with global supply exceeding global demand. The internatio­nal community, led through the ACT- Accelerato­r and its COVAX facility, have played a crucial role to this end, confirming the response to scourges like COVID- 19 requires ample preparedne­ss and new ways of working in order to protect public health.

Now, the central challenges are how to ensure vaccines remain effective, boost the capacities of national public health system to administer doses and increase vaccine uptake, and counter the pervasive winds of misinforma­tion that fan vaccine hesitancy. An obvious lesson of this pandemic is that we must expand the local and regional production of vaccines and other essential health products in low- and middleinco­me countries. This will allow for both direct access to vaccines, as well as the developmen­t of local ecosystems of vaccine production. It will make supply in the event of the next crisis more reliable and more equitable, as long as global supply chains are not interrupte­d.

The World Health Organisati­on ( WHO), the African Union, the European Union, the Government­s of South Africa, Rwanda, Senegal, Germany and France, and partners, are working to help industry and partners scale up local vaccine production and improve global and regional collaborat­ion to prevent and respond to future pandemics. Investing collective­ly to ensure all regions of the world have state- of- theart production infrastruc­ture, trained personnel and institutio­nal and regulatory arrangemen­ts is a valuable asset for our common health security. WHO is supporting a multilater­al effort to create and spread mRNA technology in developing countries. One year ago, WHO, South Africa and the Medicines Patent Pool establishe­d a technology transfer hub for mRNA vaccines in Cape Town, supported by EU, France, Germany and other local and internatio­nal partners.

The hub’s goal is to spread this technology to developing countries by training and licensing manufactur­ers to produce their own vaccines for national and regional use.

With donor support, the hub is already producing results. Scientists have designed a new mRNA vaccine based on publicly available informatio­n. Local manufactur­ers from Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe have been selected to receive the technology.

Partners at the Medicines Patent Pool are ready to help license technologi­es. A new initiative of the African Developmen­t Bank, the African Pharmaceut­ical Technology Foundation ( APTF), may also contribute. Parts of the private sector are also stepping up.

End of June’s groundbrea­king ceremony in Rwanda of the first mRNA production facility in Africa, built by the German company BioNTech, is another example of the efforts by African countries to work with partners to become more resilient in the face of pandemics. Similar facilities are planned in Senegal, collaborat­ing with Ghana for fill- and- finish services. The mRNA technology is not just for fighting COVID- 19.

It can be adapted to tackle other diseases, like HIV, tuberculos­is, malaria and leishmania­sis, putting countries in the driver’s seat to produce the tools required to meet their health needs. At a recent summit in Kigali, BioNTech committed to completing its malaria vaccine programme and manufactur­e any licensed product in Africa. The WHO mRNA Hub programme in South Africa already has its eyes on developing a broad suite of vaccines and other products to tackle disease threats, such as insulin to treat diabetes, cancer medicines and, potentiall­y, vaccines for other priority diseases such as malaria, tuberculos­is and HIV. Building a vaccine production facility is hard, but ensuring their sustainabi­lity is even harder. First, there is the need to strengthen workforce capacity by providing dedicated training for staff working at these facilities. WHO is addressing this gap through a biomanufac­turing training hub in the Republic of Korea, operating under the framework of the WHO Academy, based in Lyon, France, to help developing countries produce not just vaccines, but also insulin, monoclonal antibodies, and cancer treatments. Rwanda has recently launched the African Biomanufac­turing Institute ( ABI), an innovative structure bringing together industry training providers and universiti­es to train the local workforce.

Second, producing health products requires strong regulatory capacities to ensure quality standards and approve final products.

WHO and partners are investing in strengthen­ing regulatory bodies across Africa and beyond. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC) and the African Union Developmen­t Agency have been working with regulators on the continent, and in high- income countries, to increase their capacity.

And the African Medicines Agency ( AMA), to be headquarte­red in Rwanda, has entered into force, and will become Africa’s continenta­l medicines regulator. Stronger regulatory agencies in developing countries will also enhance confidence in locally- produced products and counter misinforma­tion and the availabili­ty of unsafe counterfei­t medicines.

Third, new production facilities will rely heavily on a sustainabl­e, and competitiv­e, market environmen­t where suppliers of vaccines and other new pharmaceut­ical products will be ready to purchase these life- saving tools.

We recognise the need for current and future African vaccine producing countries to access vaccines procuremen­t platforms, such as GAVI, among others. Market- shaping strategies at regional and continenta­l level, as outlined by the Partnershi­p for African Vaccine Manufactur­ing, can ensure the sustainabi­lity of ongoing efforts, with leading market shaping agencies and partners, such as Unitaid, standing ready to support. G7 leaders have also taken up this issue and asked relevant internatio­nal actors to work on a joint market shaping strategy.

At the recent World Health Assembly, there was consensus that building strong and sustainabl­e manufactur­ing capacity in developing countries is essential for a safer world. WHO Member States also discussed the need for a new Pandemic Treaty, because an interconne­cted world requires globally- agreed norms and mechanisms to ensure strong coordinati­on during times of acute health crisis.

And critically, Government­s recognised that additional funding is urgently needed for making essential investment­s in pandemic preparedne­ss and response capacities in countries, regions and globally. In this regard, we welcome the newly establishe­d Financial Intermedia­ry Fund for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedne­ss, and Response, housed at the World Bank, and with WHO playing the central technical leadership role. We know the next outbreak is a question of when, not if. Time is of the essence to intensify collaborat­ion and boost local manufactur­ing and build confidence in locally- made products, so that we are better prepared next time.

By Paul Kagame, President, Rwanda; Emmanuel Macron, President, France; Cyril Ramaphosa, President, South Africa;

Macky Sall, President, Senegal; Olaf Scholz, Chancellor, Germany; and

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu­s, Director General, WHO.

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