Africa must learn from the COVID-19 and be ready when the next pandemic hits.
Positive Minds | Positive Stories | Edition 025
COVID-19 shed light on a sad reality: when there is a global threat, nationalism and protectionism rise. And the poorest always pay the heaviest toll.
In a recent article (Vaccinating the world: 2bn shots done, 13bn to go), The Economist informs us that on June 2nd, precisely 176 days after the world began mass vaccination programmes for covid-19, the two-billionth shot was administered. But of the 2bn doses given, 37% have been dished out in North American and European countries with just 18% of the world's 7.6bn people (see chart). Sub-Saharan Africa, home to 13% of the global population, has administered less than 1% of total jabs. To date, less than 2% of the African population is vaccinated. Thus, the road to achieving the famous "herd immunity" —the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection— on the continent is a distant dream.
But how did we get to such inequity in the deployment of the COVID-19 vaccine?
The answer is simple: vaccine nationalism is dangerously taking over from global solidarity. As a result, the maxim "No one is safe until everyone is safe", so much preached by the world leaders, is more than ever in peril.
While rich countries are accelerating their deconfinement and stimulating their economies with COVID-19 "Marshall Plans", Africa faces the threat of a third wave. But the third wave is not the greatest threat to our beloved continent. The continent survived the first and second waves with far fewer cases than many analysts and experts had predicted. Thus, even though sub-Saharan Africa entered recession in 2020 for the first time in 25 years, it avoided the worst-case scenario predicted by many economists.
The greatest threat to the continent is forced isolation leaving it to operate in autarky with devastating socio-economic impacts on vulnerable individuals and households.
Let's face it: the vaccine passport is on its way and gaining momentum. Unfortunately, countries that have vaccinated their populations are reluctant to open their borders to those lagging in vaccination. Sadly, Africa is a leader in this regard. In the future, travel to and from the continent will be extremely difficult until it achieves herd immunity.
All sectors of the economy will be affected by such a scenario, from trade to travel and tourism, from health to education, etc. Economic recovery will be slower. As a result, more people could be pushed into extreme poverty, leading to more social unrest and political crises with unpredictable consequences.
But it doesn't have to be that way. There is still time to make things right and prevent the situation from deteriorating.
African governments should focus on preventive measures and promote barrier gestures to reduce the transmission of the virus. This is the most effective and efficient way to protect our populations and economies before the large-scale deployment of the COVID-19 vaccine.
World leaders must fulfil their commitments to the COVAX programme to accelerate the development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. But COVAX's aim is not to achieve herd immunity. Instead, its primary aim is to have 2 billion doses available by the end of 2021 to protect vulnerable and high-risk people, as well as frontline health workers. While this goal is an important one for low- and middle-income countries, more vaccines would be needed than COVAX could provide.
While strengthening and expanding the COVAX program, global solidarity must go far beyond that to fulfill the maxim "No one is safe until everyone is safe".
The temporary lifting of intellectual property protections for coronavirus vaccines could be a game-changer for African countries. Although vaccine production capacity is limited on the continent, according to WHO Africa, five African countries can produce it: Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia. Therefore, their production capacity, however small, must be mobilised to accelerate the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine on the continent. This requires, of course, the temporary lifting of intellectual property protections.
But all the above are emergency and temporary solutions. Africa needs sustainable solutions with African solutions to African problems. Under the leadership of the African Union, member states should collectively invest in vaccine development. Africa's daughters and sons have the required skills and knowledge. And Africa has the political will. Africans must now work together to leverage their collective genius, potential and resources to make it happen.
As the WHO Director-General said it:
