The second season of the Global Health Matters podcast series kicks off with a close-up look at South Africa’s health equity initiatives and champions. Health Policy Watch will be featuring episodes from the series throughout the coming year as part of a TDR-supported series. 

As the world commits to equitable access to medicines and vaccines, is this just on paper or a reality?  In the case of COVID-19, as of early April 2022, 74% of people in high-income countries had been fully vaccinated, compared with just 15% in Africa and 11% of people in low-income countries worldwide. 

With 30% of people fully vaccinated, South Africa, has one of the highest COVID vaccination rates in sub-Saharan Africa. And it has been an African leader in the manufacture of COVID vaccines, as well as a leader in the global campaign to waive intellectual property rights on COVID vaccines, tests and treatment – not to mention the historic role it played a generation ago in the legal battles that paved the way for the widespread manufacture of low-cost, generic antivirals for HIV treatment. 

Can South Africa’s experience with tackling HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 point to future solutions for other low- and middle-income countries? And how has the state of play regarding intellectual property rights for COVID health products affected development of vaccines across Africa? 

Global Health Matters podcast host Garry Aslanyan fields these and other questions to three leading South Africans scientists, policymakers and health activists, including Fatima Hassan (founder of the Health Justice Initiative), Petro Terblanche (Managing Director of Afrigen Biologics), and Judit Rius Sanjuan (Policy Specialist at UNDP). 

Click here to catch this episode, the first of the second season of TDR’s Global Health Matters podcast.  Find it on YouTube: Championing Health Equity in South Africa

Link here for all Season 1 episodes of Global Health Matters.