African nations take step towards easing reliance on selfish west for Covid vaccines

The news that six African countries are to receive the technology and equipment to produce their own mRNA vaccine is much welcomed. After the initial surge in vaccine nationalism that swept the globe, leaving many countries to fend for themselves, there is hope that the balance can be redressed.

In effect, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia have all been chosen to build vaccine production factories as part of a programme the World Health Organisation launched last year to replicate what are believed to be the most effective licensed jabs against Covid-19.

More encouragingly, the announcement comes in the same week that BioNTech, which produces the mRNA-based Pfizer vaccine, said it planned to deliver factory-like facilities built out of shipping containers to several African countries in an attempt to ramp up production on the continent.

Africa currently produces just 1 per cent of all coronavirus vaccines. And according to World Health Organisation figures, only 11 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated, compared with the global average of about 50 per cent.

The west and its pharmaceutical partners will claim they are doing what they can to improve vaccine inequity, pointing to the millions of doses that have been donated – some of which were close to expiring – to the world’s poorest and least protected nations.

But this is merely a quick fix; a plaster to a wound that refuses to heal. Poorer nations cannot depend on the West’s handouts to see itself through this pandemic.

Establishing the means of production within their own borders is the only way that the rest of the world can draw itself level with the likes of the US, Canada, Germany and France – countries that have close ties to “Big Pharma” and the guarantee of first dibs on supplies.

Campaigners have been calling for months on the leading manufacturers to drop intellectual property rights on their vaccine and share their blueprints with drug makers in every continent of the planet.

These calls remain unheeded. But the establishment of vaccine-manufacturing capabilities in a handful of African countries is clear progress.

The WHO project aims to assist low- and middle-income countries in producing mRNA vaccine doses at scale and according to international standards, with the aim of ending much of the reliance of these nations on vaccine manufacturers in the West.

The South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said Friday’s announcement “means mutual respect, mutual recognition of what we can all bring to the party, investment in our economies, infrastructure investment and, in many ways, giving back to the continent”.

Of course, this is early days. It will be years before the WHO’s mRNA technology transfer hubs are up and running, by which point many will have moved on from Covid. There is much that rich governments and well-heeled pharmaceuticals can do to accelerate this process, but, in reality, the pursuit of profits will likely limit any expression of co-operation.

This development is a big step forward for a select group of countries from the global south, but there is more left to be done.