The World Health Organization (WHO) and the African Union (AU) each have their own strategies, but some countries do not wait for them to obtain directly from manufacturers, receive donations or produce locally under foreign patents.
Two countries in Africa, Egypt and Nigeria, have decided to fund research to find their own vaccine against coronavirus. The Egyptian National Research Center (NRC) was thus authorized to start at the end of March clinical trials of its Covi-Wax, with the stated ambition to produce locally to serve the domestic market, but also to export to Africa. In Nigeria, research groups are still searching, thanks to the $ 25 million the state invested in January.
Morocco, for its part, has not launched national research but is proud of the work done in California by the American-Moroccan immunologist Lbachir Ben Mohamed on a universal vaccine that would treat all forms of Covid-19. The product, called “Pan-Coronavirus Prevention Vaccine”, is used in preclinical trials in animals.
Local production of foreign vaccines
The Moroccan investment is rather to produce locally foreign vaccines, and in particular the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm, to distribute it to its population and export it to Africa. Egypt has also begun negotiations with the Chinese group Sinovac and Senegal says they want to do the same. In South Africa, the American laboratory Johnson & Johnson (J&J) entered into an agreement with the South African group Aspen on 2 November 2020 to produce and distribute their vaccine on the continent. The capacity of the Aspen plant in Port Elizabeth is 300 million doses per year.
It remains to be seen what this deal will be, given the “pause” decided on April 14 by the US and South African authorities in their vaccination program with the J&J doses. A controversy has really erupted around the vaccine in the United States, after nine vaccinated women suffered from blood clots, one of which died, out of a total of 7 million doses injected in that country. Of the 290,000 health workers vaccinated in South Africa with J&J, no such symptoms showed, reports the South African Minister of Health.
Meanwhile, South Africa and India are asking the World Trade Organization (WTO) to ease the rules on intellectual property in order to have free access to patents, as before for antiretroviral drugs against AIDS. The goal: to manufacture them at a lower cost in the form of generic funds, to make them available to the most disadvantaged. At present, the rich countries (USA, European Union, Australia and Norway) are refusing to do so in order to protect the choke industry of their pharmaceutical industry in a huge market. Africa alone represents a demand estimated at between € 5.8 billion and € 8.2 billion by the African Union (AU).
A strong signal, the AU organized a two-day summit on 12 and 13 April to organize vaccine production in Africa in the presence of Heads of State Cyril Ramaphosa, Paul Kagamé and Félix Tshisekedi. The result was an African Partnership for Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM) that aimed to create five research and manufacturing hubs in North, West, East, Central and Southern Africa. The goal is to produce locally by 2040 60% of all vaccines the continent needs (Covid and other diseases). Agreements have been signed with the Coalition for Innovations in Epidemic Preparedness (Cepi), the Pan-African bank Afreximbank and Africa Finance Corporation.
The WHO’s Covax campaign got off to a bad start
The road will be long. Africa, 14% of the world’s population, currently produces only 0.1% of so – called ‘routine’ vaccines and on April 8 represented only 2% of the 690 million doses of Covid vaccines already administered worldwide, according to the WHO. Apart from the states most affected by the pandemic (South Africa, 53,663 deaths on April 17, Egypt, 12,653 deaths, Morocco, 8934 deaths), which are also industrialized, most countries on the continent, with low incomes or intermediaries, rely on lack of alternative means on two initiatives, one international, another continental.
The The Covax program launched by the WHO with the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) and Cepi to meet the needs of 92 poor countries around the world and to vaccinate 20% of their population by the end of the year. It began in February with an order for 90 million doses for Africa of the British vaccine AstraZeneca, produced in large quantities in India under the name “Covishield”. This brand was chosen for its price and the fact that it can be stored at refrigerator temperatures (2 to 8 degrees Celsius), and not freezer as for Modern and Pfizer. Only 16 million doses have been received by 31 countries in Africa since February (including 4 million from Nigeria, 900,000 from Algeria, 854,000 from Egypt, 300,000 from Morocco), allowing Ghana, Rwanda and Mali to launch their campaigns. .
But India, which produces the British vaccine on a large scale, suspended its exports on March 18 due to the outbreak of the pandemic within its borders. The Serum Institute of India (SII) mentions a possible recovery in exports in June.
AU orders 672 million doses over two years
“We are in a dead end like a continent,” John Nkengasong, director of the AU Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), first noted on April 15. And this, especially since the doubts about the thrombosis case linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine arouse mistrust. In Mali, of the 21,000 health workers called for vaccination, less than 700 answered the call end of March.
The AU, for its part, will order 672 million doses to cover 38% of the African population by the end of 2022, as part of its African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) initiative. In total, it takes more than double.
400 million doses already come from J&J, whose first deliveries (220 million doses) are planned for September and the rest in 2022 – if all goes well, given the current shutdowns in the US and South Africa.
Diversified purchases to avoid addiction
The picture would not be complete without mentioning the beggar-your-neighbor strategy, with agreements that countries have made directly with manufacturers of their choice. Does price and fast availability care about diplomacy? Choices are also made without becoming dependent on a single supplier. Egypt, for example, bought 350,000 doses of Sinopharm (at $ 30 per dose) to vaccinate its health workers in January, then 50,000 doses of AstraZneca. Authorities then registered Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine on February 24 for “urgent use”, without giving details. But according to Statista, 25 million doses of the Russian vaccine were ordered by Egypt (at $ 10 per dose, two doses were necessary for immunization), against 500,000 by Algeria and as many by Tunisia.
South Africa goes from setback to setback. On March 21, she sold 1 million doses of AstraZeneca to AU after discovering the impotence of the vaccine against the South African variant of Covid-19. In doing so, the authorities complained that they had paid $ 5.24 per dose, two and a half times more than Europe, for not funding research for the vaccine.
However, vaccination began on February 18 in South Africa, after receiving 80,000 initial doses of the J&J vaccine, effectively with a single injection, in an order of 9 million doses (at $ 10 per dose). Despite the break decided on April 14 on this vaccine, South Africa claims that it can achieve its goals by once again changing the melody, with 30 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, four times more expensive (from 19, 50 to 23 dollars per last days, for effective vaccination with two doses).
Large Russian and Chinese donations
Elsewhere, it is also the Russian and Chinese strategies that seem to have to pay, with large donations. China has clearly made its Sinopharm vaccine a new instrument in oneaffect the fightoverall. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at the end of February that China provides free vaccines to 53 countries and sells vaccines to 22 countries – which are sometimes the same. Thus, Zimbabwe will receive 400,000 free doses, in addition to a paid order for 600,000 additional doses. Egypt first paid for 350,000 doses and then received 300,000 for free on March 20.
Algeria and Sierra Leone also received 200,000 free doses of Sinopharm each, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Tunisia 100,000 respectively, and Mauritania 50,000.
Russia is not excluded, as it promised in February a donation of 300 million doses to the AU, which will be delivered next month. The Russian mining company Alrosa, for its part, announced its intention to buy large quantities of Sputnik V to donate it to Angola and Zimbabwe, where it is established. So many gestures pledging the farmer of the West, entangled in his Covax initiative.
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