(Paris) Building “an African vaccine market”: more than a billion dollars were announced Thursday at the world vaccination summit to accelerate the production of vaccines in Africa, currently affected by a cholera epidemic.

This fund of approximately 1.2 billion dollars, presented as an “accelerator of vaccine production in Africa, will be an essential building block for building this real African vaccine market,” declared French President Emmanuel Macron at the opening of this event in Paris, a few weeks before the Olympic Games.

The European Commission provides “three-quarters of this funding”, underlined the Head of State, host of this summit in which four African leaders (Botswana, Rwanda, Senegal, Ghana), around thirty ministers, representatives of international organizations, pharmaceutical companies, research institutes and banks.

Germany is contributing $318 million to the mechanism, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained in a video conference. France is committing $100 million and the United Kingdom $60 million, alongside other funders such as the United States, Canada, Norway, Japan and the Bill Gates Foundation.

This Global Forum for Vaccine Innovation and Sovereignty, co-organized by France, the African Union and the Vaccine Alliance, wants to give a boost to vaccine manufacturers in Africa.  

The issue of unequal access to vaccines on the African continent was highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic four years ago. Production located all over the world is seen as a response to future pandemics.

The African Union has set the objective of covering 60% of vaccine needs through local production by 2040.

The Vaccine Alliance, which helps low-income countries introduce vaccines against 20 diseases and strengthen their health sovereignty, has immunized a billion children since 2000.  

“A child born today is more likely to celebrate their 5th birthday than ever before in history,” but “there are still millions of children who have never been vaccinated against a single disease” while “Hundreds of millions more need access to more vaccines,” said the president of the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), José Manuel Barroso, present at the forum.

The Vaccine Alliance “is going to need $9 billion” for its new campaign to finance its vaccination programs from 2026 to 2030, Sania Nishtar, director of Gavi, told donors present. at the forum.

The Alliance aims to vaccinate an additional billion children by 2030 with support from donors. She wants to accelerate the introduction of new vaccines and expand the coverage of routine vaccines.

Emphasis will also be placed on financing cholera vaccines, production of which must continue to be increased to cope with shortages.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called for “sending cholera to the past” as an epidemic currently hits “half of Africa”.

The French president announced that a “production line for cholera vaccines could be deployed in Africa” by the South African laboratory Biovac, whose investments will be supported on a “priority basis” by the new financial mechanism.

For the moment, the South Korean laboratory EuBiologics is the only supplier of oral cholera vaccines.

Beyond discussions on health, Emmanuel Macron must speak with several of his African counterparts.