Is COVAX coming through on its promise?
Most of the doses were supposed to come from India, but at a point the country imposed an export ban that hampered deliveries. So, there have been some disappointments and
other issues. I’m not an expert in these, but there is now a realization that something must happen quickly so that COVAX can deliver on the promises made, otherwise, Africa will continue to lag behind on this.
Are you putting any pressure on COVAX for the 400 million doses promised?
There is a lot of pressure going on. To be fair, we are getting responses. The US government has made donations, some of which are being distributed. The French also announced some donations. We think that through these efforts, in addition to ours, we may get to the 60 per cent we are talking about. I must also thank the Mastercard Foundation that has donated, through AVATT, about 67 million doses worth $500 million.
Some countries have engaged in bilateral arrangements. Do you factor this into your distribution plan in terms of who gets what quantities?
No, we’re not running a donation, so to say. It’s COVAX that is making donations. We deliver what African countries order through us. Before the orders, I assume they have already factored in what they have, the donations they’re getting, and all that.
Is Africa capable of manufacturing its own pharmaceutical products? Is Afreximbank supporting any initiative in this regard?
Why not? For example, for the Johnson & Johnson vaccines we are buying, the fill and finished is being done by South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare facility. Here in Egypt [Afreximbank is headquartered in Cairo] Vacsera, [the vaccine manufacturers,] is working to begin producing vaccines. Companies in Algeria, Nigeria, and Senegal hope to produce vaccines.
Regarding pharmaceuticals, there is a good opportunity for Africa. The problem we have is access to markets. One of the things we are trying to change is to get those agencies that make huge orders to rethink their strategy, to give Africa the opportunity to produce pharmaceuticals.
We have had very fruitful discussions with UNICEF in this regard, and Afreximbank is ready, and I know other banks are, too. We signed an MOU with the Africa Finance Corporation to collaborate and support vaccine manufacturing projects in Africa.
We need to create this capacity for manufacturing pharmaceutical products because there is a market for them. In fact, we are the market. These drugs are coming to us; the buyers buy the products from other markets and then ship them to us. So, we want to change that situation. We’ve seen the danger of over-concentration of production in a few places.
Will the effective implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) help in this regard?
Of course, that’s one of the rationales for the AfCFTA. An integrated market will create supply chains; the markets will begin to consolidate, and we will have that buying power that will make it possible to produce more within the continent.
If people can buy things from any part of Africa, you will see an aggregation of demand. Today, we are a fragmented market. We don’t have information about what happens across the border.
The AfCFTA will help deal with this lack of market information. And when we deal with it and consolidate the market, we’ll begin to change the narrative on the continent.
