(Paris) Building “an African vaccine market”: more than a billion dollars were announced Thursday in Paris during a world summit to accelerate the production of vaccines in Africa, particularly against cholera which is prevalent in “half » from this part of the world.
This fund with 1.2 billion dollars (1.1 billion euros) “will be an essential building block for building this true African vaccine market,” declared French President Emmanuel Macron, host of the summit.
The European Commission provides “three-quarters of this funding”, underlined Mr. Macron.
Co-organized by France, the African Union and the Vaccine Alliance, the summit attracted the participation of four African leaders (Botswana, Rwanda, Senegal, Ghana), around thirty ministers, representatives of organizations international companies, pharmaceutical companies, research institutes and banks.
Contributions to this new fund, titled the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA), were announced by Germany ($318 million), France ($100m), the United Kingdom ($60m), alongside other funders (United States, Canada, Norway, Japan and the Bill Gates Foundation).
Unequal access to vaccines was highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic four years ago and localized production around 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 (Gavi), a Geneva-based international body that helps low-income countries introduce vaccines against 20 diseases and strengthen their health sovereignty, used the summit to launch its campaign to replenish its resources.
It has immunised a billion children since 2000 but “there are still millions of children who have never been vaccinated against a single disease” and “hundreds of millions more need access to a greater number of vaccines”, argued the president of the Alliance, José Manuel Barroso.
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.
Of the 9 billion dollars requested to finance its vaccination programs over 2026-2030, the Alliance was able to raise “2.4 billion dollars” from donors, including 1.58 billion from the United States, announced its director Sania Nishtar during a press conference.
The Alliance hopes to raise additional funds to accelerate the introduction of new vaccines and expand coverage of routine vaccines.
Emphasis will be placed in particular on vaccines against cholera to respond to shortages.
For the moment, the South Korean laboratory EuBiologics is the only supplier of oral cholera vaccines. French group Sanofi stopped production of its vaccine at the end of 2022, a decision taken in 2020.
Cholera has already killed 134 people in the Comoros since February and has spread to the neighboring French department of Mayotte, sparking criticism of French management of the epidemic.
Calling to “return cholera to the past”, 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.
Thanks to these financial contributions, “we are sure that within two years, Africa will produce the cholera vaccine,” said Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
