( MENAFN - Swissinfo) A new fund launched by Geneva-based vaccine alliance Gavi aims to bring more justice and promote vaccine production in Africa. It's a good start, but more needs to be done, say observers. During the COVID pandemic, the US Pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson produced their Covid vaccine in South Africa.
This was then exported to Europe, leaving the local population with no production for themselves. Get more insights into the international organisations directly from our correspondents in Geneva: sign up to our Inside Geneva newsletter. In the wake of the pandemic, Gavi, which aims to improve the supply of vaccines to poorer countries, is pushing for better access to vaccines to become a priority for the international community, an approach that is widely supported by the G7 and G20 countries.
“Today, Africa imports 99% of the vaccines that are needed on the continent,” David Kinder, Gavi's director of development financing, tells SWI swissinfo. This includes vaccines against malaria and cholera, which kill hundreds of thousands of children every year. The Gavi vaccine alliance includes UN organisations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the World Bank, as well as developing and donor countries, the vaccine industry, research institutions, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and NGOs.
Their solution to avoid another hoarding of vaccines by rich countries, as was the case during the Covid-19 pandemic, is decentralising vaccine.