Health fund of $1.1 bn announced in Paris to support vaccines production in Africa

3 months ago 14

The release of more than $1.1 billion (€1 billion) to accelerate vaccine production in Africa has been announced at the Global Forum on Vaccine Innovation and Sovereignty taking place in Paris on Thursday (June 20).

By 2030, Africa will account for more than a third of the world’s demand for vaccines, while the continent’s population is set to double over the next 25 years. But today, it only produces 1% of the vaccines it administers.

The forum called for the launch of a new mechanism to “accelerate the financing of vaccine production on the African continent”, named the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA).

France, Germany, Italy, the United States, Canada, Japan, and the European Commission are among the main contributors.

The Élysée specified that the European Commission and European countries, including France, Germany, Italy, and the US, Canada, and Japan are contributing “three-quarters” of the total.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France will reallocate $100 million to the AVMA (€93 millions).

“Health is a sovereignty issue, at the heart of the partnership […] between Africa and Europe. Global health has become a geopolitical issue, and cooperation in the healthcare field is a sign of mutual trust,”,Macron said in his opening speech.

A number of global health players are in Paris for the occasion, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), and African leaders such as Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is scheduled to speak by videoconference, while the European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, is attending the forum.

Pharmaceutical companies such as Sanofi, Aspen and BioVax are also present.

“Disappointed” by G7, France must do more

Ndidi Nwuenli, head of the NGO One, which fights to improve health in Africa, is also present at the Forum to call on European countries to do more to improve access to vaccination in Africa after being “disappointed” by the commitments of the G7 leaders, who met in Italy on 13-15 June.

In 2022, the G7 countries’ public share of development aid to Africa was 25.8%, falling from 37% in 2020 and 47% in 2006.

“We’ve heard them say time and again that they’re committed to Africa, but their donations are the lowest they’ve been in 50 years,” Nwuenli told Euractiv.

The head of One also believes that France, the fourth-largest contributor to the Gavi Alliance after Great Britain, the United States, and Norway, must increase its funding.

“We want France to increase its commitment by at least 20% to be a model for other countries in Europe and the world”, she said.

Since the creation of the Gavi Alliance in 2004, France has committed €1,720 million an “essential” investment given the “long relationship” between France and Africa, according to Nwuenli.

For its part, the EU is keen to support Africa in the creation of an African medicines agency modelled on the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

Cholera, malaria and AIDS

Cholera is on the increase worldwide. According to the WHO, cases have doubled between 2021 and 2022, reaching 473,000 people that year, and more than 700,000 in 2023.

During the forum, Macron called for cholera to be “consigned to the past”, as half of Africa is currently hit by an epidemic. The number of cases notified on the continent only in January 2023 has already reached over 30% of the total number of cases recorded for the whole of 2022, according to the United Nations (UN).

Cholera is compounded by the AIDS virus, who killed 630,000 people in 2022 and by malaria.

In 2020, of the 241 million cases of malaria, 627,000 people died. That’s 14 million more cases and 47,000 more deaths than in 2019, according to the WHO’s report published in 2021. Pregnant women and children under five account for 80% of malaria deaths.

For Ndidi Nwuenli, it’s a matter of urgency: “What Africa needs is technology transfer, qualified health personnel, incentives for research and development, and a regulatory mechanism for vaccines”.

[Edited by Laurent Geslin/Alice Taylor]