The Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM) was launched by Felix Tshisekedi, Chair of the African Union and President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, during a virtual summit hosted by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) on 12-13th April 2021 under the theme “Expanding Africa’s Vaccine Manufacturing for Health Security: Building back better, bolder and bigger.”
This landmark global summit was attended by over 40,000 participants from the Private sector, Industry, World Health Organization (WHO), World Trade Organization, Public Health, Ministries of Health and Finance, philanthropic foundations, academia, community health organisations and health professionals from over 100 countries.
Strong political commitments were made to drive momentum for the African Union’s bold vision to manufacture about 60% of its vaccines on the continent by 2040, an initiative that will be led by Africa CDC. Amongst the African leaders in attendance were:
• Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission.
• President Cyrill Ramaphosa, Champion and President of the Republic of South Africa,
• President Paul Kagame, Health Financing Champion and President of Republic of Rwanda, who called for more African countries to rapidly build capacity to adopt advanced technologies to enable manufacture of mRNA vaccines.
Since the Summit, several countries have made remarkable progress:
• On the 10th of July 2021, Senegal, the European Union, the United States, several European governments, and partners, signed an accord to finance vaccine production at the
Institut Pasteur of Dakar.
• On the 5th of July 2021, Morocco under the chairmanship of H.M King Mohammed VI, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Swedish company “Recipharm” to
establish and scale-up COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing capacity in the country. Moroccan pharmaceutical producers also discussed different public-private partnerships and subcontraction opportunities for vaccine manufacturing.
• On the 28th of June 2021, South Africa signed an agreement between Biovac, Afrigen Biologics & Vaccines, a network of universities, WHO, COVAX, and Africa CDC established
the first COVID-19 mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub in Africa.
• On the 29th of April 2021, Egypt signed two agreements between Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines (VACSERA) and Sinovac for COVID-19 vaccine
manufacturing in the country.
• On the 7th of April 2021, Algeria announced production of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine in partnership with Russia, and part of the production is intended for African countries.
You can find the post-summit communique by clicking on the following link – Communique
About Africa CDC
Africa CDC is a specialized technical institution of the African Union that strengthens the capacity and capability of Africa’s public health institutions as well as partnerships to detect and respond quickly and effectively to disease threats and outbreaks, based on data-driven interventions and programmes. Learn more at: www.africacdc.org