One of the sticking issues that nearly stalled the global pandemic treaty was vaccine equity in developing countries, including countries in Africa.
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The treaty is crucial. But also important to note is that even without it the continent has been working towards self-sufficiency.
The latest iteration to boost this self-sufficiency happened at The Global Forum for Vaccine Sovereignty and Innovation last week in Paris, France.
Let's start with the treaty. For the past two years, the World Health Organisation has been working on a global agreement to prepare for future public health emergencies, drawing on lessons from COVID-19.
The resulting treaty was to be passed at the annual World Health Assembly (WHA) comprising 194 member states early this month but was deferred to next year pending further negotiations.
The Assembly, however, agreed on a package of amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations that will strengthen global preparedness, surveillance and responses to public health emergencies, including pandemics.
Notably, in addition to a financing component, the member states agreed on a definition of a pandemic emergency that will be used "to trigger more effective international collaboration in response to events that are at risk of becoming, or have become, a pandemic."
Trouble arose when African and other developing countries raised a concern about sharing information about pathogens such as viruses and their genetic sequences and not afford the resulting vaccines and other treatments because of intellectual property rights.
Under one heavily disputed provision in the draft agreement, as reported by Science magazine, a publication of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), vaccine makers would have to donate 10 per cent of their product to developing countries and sell another 10 per cent to WHO at cost. The international pharmaceutical industry objected to this language.
What's more, as reported by Voice of America, some U.S. Republican senators protested to the Biden administration that the draft treaty contained "intellectual property rights" issues. And Britain said it would agree to the treaty only if it "adhered to British national interest and sovereignty."
These are some of the issues up for negotiation in the coming year. And with these rich countries clinging to their strong positions, there are understandable concerns the talks may not yield much or yield soon. Access to HIV antiretroviral drugs played out pretty much the same.
"Time and time again in these negotiations," noted the charity organisation Oxfam in a statement, "rich countries have danced to the tune of big pharmaceutical corporations instead of healing the deep geopolitical chasms caused by their short-sighted vaccine nationalism."
This brings us to the Global Forum for Vaccine Sovereignty and Innovation, or more specifically the forum's convenors Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, the African Union and other partners and their launch of the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator.
The accelerator is a financial mechanism that will avail US$ 1 billion over the next ten years to support manufacturers in the continent to increase the share of vaccines, medicines and diagnostics locally manufactured in Africa to 60 per cent by 2040, from the current one per cent.
This includes upscaling for pandemic preparedness and response. The capacity already exists. The African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative lists 14 vaccine manufacturing companies in Africa, some already with the capacity or are geared to produce mRNA vaccines.
The BioNTech vaccine manufacturing facility set to begin operation in Rwanda is yet another example of the continental movement towards self-sufficiency.
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The recently announced $145 million additional funding to the Kigali facility by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) will support BioNTech to establish mRNA vaccine research and development (R&D), clinical, and commercial-scale manufacturing capabilities at the facility.
BioNTech says it will dedicate up to half of the facility's manufacturing capacity to produce emergency response mRNA vaccines for Africa as part of the 100 Days Mission, a global initiative to accelerate the development of safe and effective vaccines in response to an outbreak of a novel Disease X in as little as 100 days.
The 100 Days Mission is spearheaded by CEPI which, according to the organisation, is embraced by the industry leaders and the G7 and G20 countries, which include the US, Britain and the European Union.
If this is so, it is probably just a matter of time before the concerns being addressed in the ongoing negotiations are concluded towards a treaty everyone will be happy about.
