where is the thinking of the WHO and in Africa to better anticipate pandemics?

The global Covid-19 pandemic has exposed huge inequalities in access to vaccines. African countries, in particular, were among the last to be supplied. Today, at the WHO and in Africa, efforts for a common fight are struggling to produce results.

The Covid-19 pandemic has killed more than 7 million people worldwide and caused the paralysis of the global economy and widespread panic on all continents. Covid seems far away and yet we wonder if the world would be ready to face a new health crisis. While Africa is trying to set up local vaccine production factories, the WHO has been trying for two years to agree on a treaty that would make it possible to better fight the next pandemic.

In Geneva, still the same standoff as during Covid

In Geneva, during the World Health Assembly, WHO member countries did not reach an agreement to revise international health regulations in order to avoid a new health, social and economic catastrophe like that of Covid. The current international health regulations (IHR) showed all their limits in 2020 and still do not resolve the questions of sharing the genome of a virus, vaccines, treatments. Hence the interest in developing a new treaty.

But the operation is very restrictive. The draft on the table proposed reserving 20% ​​of future tests, treatments and vaccines for the WHO to be able to distribute them to poor countries. For some, it’s too much. For others, it’s not enough. The countries of the South also want to have the guarantee that if they discover a pathogen, they will not be the last to be able to protect themselves from it. It’s the same standoff as during Covid, with on one side those in favor of strengthening the WHO and those who especially do not want to see the agency interfere in their health policy. On the WHO side, we want to believe that all this was for nothing. Member States could decide to further prolong discussions with the risk that everything will be called into question again, in the event of Donald Trump’s return to power at the end of the year.

In Africa, Kenya, Senegal and South Africa are pushing the construction of local factories

In Kenya, a project called BioVax was launched in 2020 by the Kenyan government, to set up a vaccine production plant in Kenya. The country thus wants to fight against its dependence on vaccine imports which the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted. Since 2020, the BioVax project has fallen behind schedule but Nairobi is fighting for it to take place. Construction of the factory should finally begin in the coming months. It will initially focus on filling and packaging imported vaccines. The first are expected within five years. We will find vaccines against polio, chickenpox and even tuberculosis. The objective of this factory is ultimately to produce its own vaccines.

Kenya has a demand for around 16 million doses per year, all vaccines combined. Currently, almost 90% of its vaccines are obtained thanks to funding from Unicef ​​and GAVI, the vaccine alliance. However, GAVI has announced an end to its support for Kenya in 2029, which further pushes the country to have its own production by then. The project is all the more closely followed as others are called into question, such as that of the American firm Moderna which was preparing to build a vaccine production plant in Kenya: the latter declared in April that it was putting this project on break.

Across the African continent, we find the same ambition to have vaccines produced locally. Vaccine production projects also exist in Senegal and South Africa. For the moment, only 1% of vaccines used in Africa come from the continent. Members of the African Union have set themselves the goal of locally producing 60% of Africa’s vaccine needs by 2040.

The President of Kenya, William Ruto, is pushing hard for this local production. He highlighted it, notably last week, during his trip to the United States. He emphasized the continent’s vulnerabilities during the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting need for African production.