Africa Must Produce Its Own Vaccines by Landry Signé project-syndicate.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from project-syndicate.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Four factors blocking medicines being manufactured in Africa
26 Apr 2021
Setting up a continent-wide medicine regulator could be crucial to getting Africa’s people the treatments and Covid vaccines they need. Here’s why more countries need to put their weight behind it
As Covid-19 began to spread around the globe in March 2020, drug supplies ironically shrank, because of the pandemic’s effect on global supply chains.
The Chinese and Indian supply and export contractions exposed sub-Saharan Africa’s vulnerability to variation in the supply of medical products because of the dependence of these countries on imports (which make up 70% to 90% of their medicines).
AUDA-NEPAD: Does money and focus equal ownership and trade? ecdpm.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ecdpm.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
AU to set up infrastructure fund to make free trade plans a reality Reuters > By Reuters - 19 February 2021 - 11:49 The AU needs to raise hundreds of billions to fund the construction of infrastructure if it wants to make the free trade area plan a reality. Image: 123RF/DMITRIJS KAMINSKIS The African Union (AU) is setting up a fund to finance the construction of much-needed roads, railways and power plants on the continent, its infrastructure head said, turning to new sources of cash due to donor fatigue and higher debt levels.
The continent has an estimated annual infrastructure financing deficit of $60bn-$90bn (R872.5bn-R1.3 trillion), the AU says, making it hard for the body to advance its goal of integrating the disparate individual markets into a single, free trade area.