African Union aims for 60 per cent local vaccine production by 2040
As it stands, Africa manufactures just one per cent of the vaccines it requires, a shortfall that limits the continent's ability to respond swiftly to disease outbreaks.
The African Union (AU) has announced an ambitious new plan to ensure that 60 per cent of vaccines used in Africa are manufactured locally by 2040, in a bid to reduce overreliance on imports.
As it stands, Africa manufactures just one per cent of the vaccines it requires, a shortfall that limits the continent's ability to respond swiftly to disease outbreaks.
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Efforts to close this gap are gaining momentum, with three companies in South Africa and Senegal expected to begin producing eight different vaccines by 2030.
The announcement was made by Kevin Irandagiye, the Technical Communications Officer at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Platform for Harmonised African Health Products Manufacturing (PHAHM), during a health journalism workshop in Ethiopia.
The three-day session covered a range of health priorities in Africa, including responses to outbreaks like Mpox, Ebola, Marburg, and cholera, alongside discussions on boosting local vaccine and pharmaceutical manufacturing.
According to Irandagiye, focus will be on five major disease areas that pose a significant health burden in Africa: diabetes, HIV, malaria, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), and tuberculosis.
In 2022, 600,000 new cases of HIV were recorded across the continent, which is nearly half of global infections. Similarly, 230 million cases of malaria infections were recorded within the same period, accounting for 94 per cent of global infections.
Additionally, NTDs cases rose to 36.2 per cent in the period, up from 25.6 per cent in 2000, while an estimated 700,000 people went undiagnosed for tuberculosis diagnosis in 2022.
"At Africa CDC, we are working to ensure these vaccines meet demand as part of our journey towards the 2040 target," said Irandagiye.
According to an April report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), vaccination efforts in Africa in the past 50 years have saved approximately 51.2 million lives across the continent.
Key milestones include a major decline in measles-related mortality, with an estimated 19.5 million deaths prevented over the past 22 years. Meningitis deaths have also seen a significant drop, by as much as 39 per cent in 2019 compared to 2000.
The African region was also declared free of indigenous wild poliovirus in 2022, marking the culmination of years of dedicated efforts to safeguard children from the disease.
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