Building vaccine sovereignty: Africa’s path to resilient health security
The Covid-19 pandemic exposed Africa’s overreliance on imported vaccines, making vaccine sovereignty a strategic necessity. Targeted investments, pooled procurement and regional specialisation can unlock sustainable production
to supply shocks. Pooled procurement is therefore essential: aggregating continental demand creates economies of scale, de-risks investment through multiyear contracts, strengthens negotiating leverage and allows efficient supply chain planning. The AU’s African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team offers a platform to realise this potential, but it remains underused. To transform it into a driver of local production, governments must mandate minimum purchase commitments, prioritise African suppliers and issue multiyear advanced purchase agreements covering priority vaccines. National policies must align, requiring public health agencies to source increasing shares from African manufacturers, adopt total cost-of-ownership approaches and ring-fence budgets to ensure stable funding. Although African-made vaccines may initially cost more, this premium is an investment in sovereignty, offsetting import tariffs, cold chain losses and price volatility. Predictable demand also enables manufacturers to invest in research and development for neglected diseases, adopt advanced platforms and build full production capacity, as exemplified by India’s Serum Institute. Since the late 1980s, the World Health Organization has ensured the safety, quality and efficacy of
Vaccine Manufacturing framework and Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa offer a valuable blueprint. However, realising its goals demands proportional commitments within national budgets. Such commitments include directing public funds towards critical infrastructure development, such as fill-and-finish facilities and upstream antigen production. These investments must be complemented by financial incentives for manufacturers, including tax breaks, grants and low-interest loans to mitigate risks for private sector participation. Fragmented systems across 55 AU members cause delays and increase costs, making the accelerated operationalisation of the AMA imperative. The agency was established by treaty in 2019 to address these challenges by implementing harmonised regulatory practices continent-wide through frameworks such as the African Vaccine Regulatory Forum. African manufacturers also require predictable demand to sustain operations, which underscores the importance of pooled procurement mechanisms. Without guaranteed purchase volumes, even advanced production facilities risk becoming underutilised and financially unviable, perpetuating a reliance on imports and leaving the continent vulnerable
Nicaise Ndembi, Africa Regional Office, International Vaccine Institute T he inequities exposed during the Covid-19 pandemic made one truth undeniable: global health security is inextricably linked to local manufacturing capacity. For Africa, a continent bearing a disproportionate burden of infectious diseases yet historically reliant on imported vaccines, establishing robust, sustainable vaccine production is a fundamental act of political and economic self-determination and a health imperative. This requires confronting the barriers to African vaccine sovereignty by building actionable pathways forward. SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENTS CREATED BY GOVERNMENTS AND REGIONAL BODIES Governments and regional entities such as the African Union, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the African Medicines Agency and the African Union Development Agency – New Partnership for Africa’s Development are central to establishing the ecosystem necessary for vaccine manufacturing, which requires a comprehensive, multidimensional approach. The Partnerships for African
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Health: A Political Choice – The Future of Health in a Fractured World
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