Coronavirus: African Union calls for unbiased sharing of coronavirus vaccine

26 Juin 2020

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, June 26 (Infosplusgabon) – Top scientists, researchers and ministers of health rose from a two-day virtual conference on Thursday to discuss a roadmap towards a coronavirus vaccine, calling for the lifting of intellectual property rights likely to limit access to a global vaccine and its fair distribution in Africa.

The virtual conference, convened by the African Union’s founded Centre for Disease Control (Africa CDC), singled out the need to accelerate the search for a global vaccine against the coronavirus disease and urged global pharmaceutical companies to open up the vaccine for widespread distribution.

African Union Commissioner for Social Affairs, Amira El Fadil, while delivering a communiqué issued after the two-day meeting, said the conference agreed to support the AU in developing an African vaccine strategy and to ensure that all barriers to the vaccine distribution is removed across the African continent.

The conference discussed deeply entrenched social, religious and traditional cultures which might impede the active distribution of the vaccine across Africa and called for the removal of these barriers.

The participants agreed to jointly call on the African Union to work towards securing sufficient supplies of Africa’s global share of the vaccine developed by international pharmaceutical companies.

There are at least 128 global vaccine trials already commenced around the world. At least 25 global companies had requested to carry out their vaccine trials and research in Africa.

However, the Africa CDC Director, John Nkengasong, said at least 13 of those vaccine trials were undergoing phase one testing, nine others had reached phase II testing and three vaccine candidates had reached phase III.

The phase one trials includes the limited deployment of a vaccine on a small and limited group of people, with the size of the population extended in Phase II, to cover age and physical health of the people intended to use the vaccine while phase III trials includes testing the vaccine for extra risks.

Nkengasong said the coronavirus vaccine process in Africa should be conducted in a network clinical system. A network system involves the use of various health professionals, organisations and consumers working together across a number of different specialties to develop the vaccine.

The AU CDC chief said the network should also ensure its work on the vaccine initiative works on the development of the infrastructure required to reduce the challenges faced by those developing the vaccine. These will include an undertaking to ensure the developers of the global vaccine against the coronavirus do not face active challenges accessing the market for the vaccine.

The AU officials agree that the organisation should take the lead in designing the required guidelines for the pharmaceutical companies to follow to avail the required vaccines for distribution in Africa.

Speaking during the CDC conference, UN Aids (UNAID) Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima, said the vaccines currently under development should be opened up for wider distribution across boundaries.

Byanyima said it took 10 years to effectively respond to the outbreak of the HIV/AIDS around the world with at least 24 million people globally now put in life-saving treatment but with another 30.4 million people still not on treatment decades later.

The UNAIDS chief said the coronavirus disease vaccines should use public technologies to avoid the hoarding of the final product against certain regions of the world.

She said the system of financing the development of such a vaccine should also remove monopolies such as what is currently happening, where the private companies are entering into agreements with certain countries to make the vaccines available.

The UNAIDS chief said a letter demanding the research and development process of the coronavirus vaccine to be made a public venture has already been signed by influential global voices including 50 former heads of state around the world and influential leaders around Africa.

FIN/ INFOSPLUSGABON/DFG/GABON2020

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