Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation: Decisive Move To Enhance Africa’s Health Sector

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Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation: Decisive Move To Enhance Africa’s Health Sector

14 juil. 2022 09:41

The news for the approval of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation by the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has been greeted with a lot of enthusiasm across the continent. This is because the continent has over the years been to a larger extent, importing medicine, vaccines and other pharmaceutical products to the tune of hundreds billions of dollars. The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, a new ground-breaking institution is expected to significantly enhance Africa’s access to the technologies that underpin the manufacture of medicines, vaccines, and other pharmaceutical products. African Development Bank Group President, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina said: “This is a great development for Africa. Africa must have a health defence system, which must include three major areas: revamping Africa’s pharmaceutical industry, building Africa’s vaccine manufacturing capacity, and building Africa’s quality healthcare infrastructure.” The African Development Bank’s move to adorn the continent with the technology foundation came at the behest of African leaders who during the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa in February 2022, called on the African Development Bank to facilitate the establishment of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation. This explains the euphoria that gripped the continent after the announcement last June 27. The decision is a major boost to the health prospects of the 1.3 billion populated continent that has been battered for decades by the burden of several diseases and pandemics such as Covid19, but with very limited capacity to produce its own medicines and vaccines. Africa imports more than 70 per cent of all the medicines it needs, gulping USD 14 billion per year. Global efforts to rapidly expand the manufacturing of essential pharmaceutical products including vaccines in developing countries, particularly in Africa, to assure greater access, have been hampered by intellectual property rights protection and patents on technologies, know-how, manufacturing processes and trade secrets. African pharmaceutical companies do not have the scouting and negotiation capacity, and bandwidth...