AHF Summit: Current Status & Role of the Private Sector in Increasing Access to Vaccines in Africa

Since the advent of COVID-19 in late 2019,  vaccines against the scourge have been developed and approved globally with unprecedented haste. And yet, COVID-19 has the world on its knees, with no signs of waning. Instead, 18 months on, countries globally are experiencing third and fourth waves due to mutations making the pathogen more transmissible and resistant to earlier developed vaccines.

The disease alone is not the only ravaging factor. Terms such as vaccine-nationalism, -hesitancy and -apartheid have become commonplace and many countries face limited production capacity, cold chain hurdles, health infrastructure challenges and a deficit of human resource for safe and effective delivery of the vaccines.

All these factors are magnified for Africa with its varied group of under-developed and developing nations. Yet Africa is determined to see 60% of its population (~800 million people) vaccinated by 2023. Currently, only 2.55% of the population have had the first dose of any COVID-19 vaccine, and only 1.09% has have had two doses, according to Africa CDC.

With this in mind, the Africa Healthcare Federation is holding a summit for the private sector in Africa, based on their strengths in relevant areas of the supply chain, with the backdrop of the all the obstacles preventing access and the preferred public-private partnership model. The summit will allow for deliberation upon and formulation of initiatives that will increase Africa’s access to COVID-19 vaccines.