mRNA vaccine hub in Africa is aimed at developing vaccines locally and distributing it.
Lab technicians at Afrigen, a Cape Town firm that is part of the WHO mRNA Vaccine Hub in South Africa.

The mRNA Vaccine Technology Transfer Hub in South Africa will start animal studies on its first COVID-19 vaccine candidate in October, a senior World Health Organization official said Wednesday.

If all goes according to plan, human clinical trials will begin towards the end of 2023. 

“We did start this (mRNA vaccine hub) with a longer term view, beyond COVID-19. The idea was not to come up, necessarily, with a vaccine for COVID-19 though that would be a proof of principle. But it is going to take time,” World Health Organization (WH)O Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swamination said at the global health body’s weekly media briefing. 

The WHO’s ambitious project is hosted by the South African company Afrigen Biologics, and aims to equip low and middle income countries (LMICs) with the skills to manufacture mRNA vaccines.  

Over 15 other global sites have been chosen to manufacture mRNA vaccines to  address the massive vaccine inequity between the wealthy and the LMICs exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.  

While over 60% of the world population have been fully vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, only around 24% of the population in low income countries have received their first dose of the vaccine. 

African countries currently import over 90% of their vaccines, lacking the capacity to develop and manufacture vaccines locally. Local manufacture of vaccines will enable the easy distribution to nearby countries, which will also address the accessibility and coverage gap. 

Scientists from across the world have also been receiving bio-manufacturing training in South Korea, supported by WHO. This training will equip them with the technical know-how to manufacture advanced vaccines in their own countries.  

“The idea is to build this network, capacity, put the technology in the hands of scientists in these companies, who will then make products that are needed for their own populations,” Swaminathan added. 

South African regulatory body ranked ‘stable and well-functioning’ 

The WHO also announced that it has ranked South Africa’s vaccine regulatory system at the ML-3 level in its global classification system for medical products regulatory authorities. This is the second highest level in this system, and means that the country has “a stable, well-functioning and integrated regulatory system” that ensures the quality, safety and efficacy of vaccines produced, imported or distributed in the country. 

“This is an important new step, not only for South Africa, but for the region towards self-sufficiency in vaccines and medicines,” WHO Regional Director for Africa Dr Matshidiso Moeti said in a press release. 

Indian company under WHO radar

Meanwhile, an Indian pharmaceutical company, Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited, is under investigation for allegedly manufacturing contaminated cold and cough syrups, according to the WHO.

The medicines have been linked to acute kidney injuries and 66 deaths among children in The Gambia. 

“Laboratory analysis of samples of each of the four products confirms that they contain unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol as contaminants,” according to WHO’s medical product alert issued on Wednesday. 

“While the contaminated products have so far only been detected in The Gambia, they may have been distributed to other countries. WHO recommends all countries detect and remove these products from circulation to prevent further harm to patients,” WHO Chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.  

Image Credits: Rodger Bosch for MPP/WHO.

The announcement by Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Coca-Cola will sponsor the 27th Annual United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27) has been widely condemned by climate and health activists.

“Coca-Cola is already a de facto sponsor of the global obesity epidemic,” Katie Dain, CEO of the NCD Alliance, told Health Policy Watch.  “The health of the planet deserves better.”

Meanwhile, a range of climate activists and organisations including Greepeace and Extinction Rebellion, as well as politicians and have described the sponsorship as “greenwashing”. In 2021, the Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo were ranked as the world’s top plastic polluters for the fourth consecutive year, according to Break Free From Plastic’s  global Brand Audit report. In 2019, the company admitted that it used three million tonnes of plastic packaging in one year.

What’s inside the bottles?

However, less attention has been placed on the impact of what is inside Coca-Cola’s plastic bottles. Egyptians consume large quantities of sugary drinks, a known cause of obesity – and obesity is the source of a significant proportion of the country’s health problems.

Largely as a result of diets high in sugar, salt and fat, Egypt has the highest obesity rate in the African continent and it has the 18th highest rate globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The next highest African country is South Africa, which is ranked 30th.

Between 2015 and 2019, the carbonated soft drinks market in Egypt grew by 27%, and from 2020, has been increasing annually by 19%, according to market research. By 2025, the market is estimated to be worth  $4.08 billion.

By 2019, almost 40% of adult Egyptians were obese, according to the “100 million health” survey, which was conducted by Egyptian authorities in 2019 and screened 49.7 million adult Egyptians. Almost half of women (49.5%) and 29.5% of men were obese.

Diabetes in 85% of cases in Egyptian women and 62% in men are “attributable to obesity” – over 7.7 million people – according to a recent report.

In addition, according to the report, “about 13 million adults suffered from sleep apnea and about 8.5 million suffered from fatty liver due to obesity” while “hypertension caused by obesity affected about 6 million adults” in 2020. 

These have all had an impact on the deaths of Egyptians.

COP27, to be hosted from 6-18 November in the Egyptian city of Sharm-El Sheikh, is supposed to provide a platform for governments, the private sector and civil society to discuss solutions to climate change. This is the first of the COPs to be held in Africa, and a key focus is on how low and middle-income countries should be compensated for damage from high emitters of greenhouse gas.

At the event to announce its COP27 sponsorship last week, Coca-Cola said “Climate is a key area of focus as The Coca-Cola Company works towards its 2030 Science Based Target of an absolute 25% emissions reduction and its ambition to be net zero carbon globally by 2050.”

“Through the COP27 partnership, the Coca-Cola system aims to continue exploring opportunities to build climate resilience across its business, supply chain and communities, while engaging with other private sector actors, NGOs, and governments to support collective action against climate change,” according to the company.

Health systems must work together with populations, communities, and patients in addressing the COVID-19 response and other health risks

Russia’s war in Ukraine is draining resources to build better health systems, while Sino-American rivalry is undermining the global solidarity needed to address future pandemics.

But the massive under-investment in new antibiotics to combat drug-resistant “superbugs” and weak primary health systems might be the biggest enemies of global health.

This was according to global health leaders who were discussing how to attract better investment in health at an event organised by European Investment Bank (EIB) and the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday.

One of the biggest investments needed is in research and development (R&D) for new antibiotic drugs in the face of rising drug resistance – but this field attracts less than 5% of venture capital investment in pharmaceutical R&D.

A key reason for this is the “high risk of failure”, according to Barbara Kerstiens, head of the Combatting Diseases unit in the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation at the European Commission.

Barbara Kerstiens, head of the Combatting Diseases unit in the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation at the European Commission.

“Under the innovative medicines initiative, we’ve been funding a large programme to support the development of new antibiotics, and after 10 or more years, still, there’s nothing on the horizon so it’s just high risk,” said Kerstiens.

The European Commission was working with the EIB to provide “push and pull incentives to stimulate the development of these new antimicrobials”, she added.

John Reeder, director of TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases and Director of the Research for Health Department at the World Health Organization (WHO), also favoured special incentives to develop new antibiotics.

“We see that this [field] isn’t really fitting with the current model of Big Pharma to do this, as there is a very long time before realising profits against quite high investment,” said Reeder.

“We really need to be thinking of alternative models and one of the things that I’ve been very impressed with over the last decade has been the rise of product development partnerships, which have been focusing on diseases which have no market – many of the neglected tropical diseases–  and yet being able to form partnerships which drive production of new therapeutics,” he said.

He gave the example of how a drug for sleeping sickness had received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2021 after being developed through such product development partnerships.

The drug, Fexinidazole, was developed as part of an innovative partnership between the non-profit research and development organization Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) and drug company Sanofi.

“We need to think about the model and how we involve pharma but not just rely on them,” said Reeder.

He also stressed the immediate need to ensure that countries introduce “better stewardship’ about the use of antibiotics to slow down the development of drug resistance.

“It tends to be the higher income countries that have been using more intensively antibiotics and using the more recent antibiotics at much higher volumes that are now facing these big problems,” said Reeder.

“Like most biological organisms, [pathogens] are really quite clever and quite complex and they’ve been pushed towards an evolutionary state of dodging around the tools we have in front of us,” said Reeder.

Jeremy Farrar, Wellcome Trust

“Without antibiotics, you can’t conduct safe surgery, you can’t have safe childbirth. You can’t prevent infections in people needing intensive care, or dying after trauma or after surgery. So we’re talking about the whole of modern medicine here, and yet, as a world, we’re not prepared to invest,” said Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust.

“We must not underestimate the long-term nature of research and innovation, and we need to appreciate that the private sector has got a crucial role to play. But if we want vaccines, therapeutics, tests for which there’s no commercial model, or indeed antibiotics to treat new infections, then we’ve got to appreciate that the public sector and philanthropy, have got to be willing to invest and pay for those products for which at the moment that may be no commercial driver.”

Farrar added that the world has not valued antibiotics or vaccines highly enough.

“We’ve regarded antibiotics are something that is as cheap as chips. Like Smarties, you can buy them very cheaply in many parts of the world. We haven’t looked after them as well as we could and should have done, which means drug resistance is going to come sooner. 

“If we lose this class of drugs, or tuberculosis becomes more resistant or indeed malaria becomes more resistant, then we will have a growing pandemics of these diseases which we really should be able to combat.”

Farrar also favours “a different model between the public and the private sector”, with companies being incentivized to develop these essential drugs for the future and this would also ensure that they were more accessible to all parts of the world”.

Dr Tedros

Primary health as the foundation

WHO Director-General Dr Tedos Adhanom Ghebreyusus appealed for investment in primary healthcare, praising the EIB for its commitment of €500 million to support primary health care in sub-Saharan countries.

“When health is protected and promoted individuals, families, communities, economies and nations can thrive. The best way to do this is to invest in and reorient health systems towards primary health care as the foundation of universal health coverage,” said Tedros.

“More than 90% of essential services can be delivered through primary health care, including many services to promote health and prevent disease and avoid or delay the need for more costly secondary and tertiary care.”

Meanwhile, Thomas Östros, EIB vice president, warned that “long-term investment in health and life sciences may be further put on hold because of the current geopolitical situation”.

“National budgets are being stretched by food and energy price shocks triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” said Östros. “Fiscal pressures are increasing, yet long-term health care challenges remain. What is clear is that we must prioritise investments in healthcare before the next crisis strikes.” 

Former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, said that “building more resilient national health systems, which can adjust rapidly to deal with crises while also maintaining all services” was key to pandemic-proof countries.

“The new pandemic fund at the World Bank, in coordination with WHO, requires a minimum of $10,5 billion every year, mostly to invest in safeguards in low and middle-income countries. But so far, this fund has commitments totalling just over a 10th of that amount. That’s not sustainable funding.”

[Correction: An earlier version of the story attributed various quotes made by Dr John Reeder to the European Commission’s Dr John Ryan.]

Image Credits: Flickr: Rumi Consultancy/World Bank.

Alzheimer's Disease and dementia can lead to loneliness in old age.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia found in elderly people.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has pushed the deadline to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease from 2025 to 2030. 

The earlier deadline had been decided on at the 2013 G8 Dementia Summit. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia and makes up 60-70% of the global dementia cases. 

WHO’s A Blueprint for Dementia Research, which was launched on Tuesday, identifies gaps in dementia research and sets time-bound goals to tackle the disease. It found that most countries were behind on the targets set in 2017 on public health response to dementia. 

Dementia is a non-communicable disease that mainly affects older people. It is estimated that over 55 million people are living with dementia across the world, of which around 60% live in low and middle income countries. 

Every year, around 10 million new cases of dementia are reported globally. At this rate, it is expected that by the year 2030, 78 million people will be living with dementia – growing to 139 million people by 2050. 

The blueprint summarises the current state of dementia research across six themes including  drug development, clinical trials,  care and support. It also pinpoints existing knowledge gaps in research and recommends 15 goals with a time-bound action plan. 

According to the blueprint, WHO wants member-states to formulate a disease-modifying therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease by 2030. The WHO also directs member states to develop capacity to conduct clinical intervention trials for dementia, especially in low and middle income countries by 2027. 

WHO Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan pointed out that, at present, dementia research accounts for less than 1.5% of the total health research output in the world, despite the disease being the seventh leading cause of death globally. 

“Sadly, we are falling behind (in) implementing the Global action plan on the public health response to dementia 2017-25. Addressing dementia comprehensively requires research and innovation to be an integral part of the response.”

At the G8 Dementia Summit in 2013, countries had vowed to increase funding for research and to identify a cure or a disease-modifying therapy by the year 2025. In 2017, all 194 WHO member states adopted the Global Action Plan on the Public Health Response to Dementia. This plan reiterated their commitment to fighting dementia. 

However, as per the Global Status Report on the Public Health Response to Dementia published by WHO in 2019, only 26% of the member states of the global health body have a plan to address dementia in their countries. 

In addition, only 21% of the WHO’s member states have an awareness campaign for dementia. The metrics on diagnosis and reporting mechanisms across member states also remains grim. The report, therefore, concluded that the world, as a whole, is far behind in both finding a cure for dementia and in achieving the targets set for 2025. 

“We can achieve progress in dementia research by strengthening and monitoring the drivers of research highlighted in the Blueprint so that they become the norm for good research practice,” Dr Ren Minghui, WHO’s Assistant Director General UHC/Communicable & Non Communicable Diseases said. 

Image Credits: Photo by Steven HWG on Unsplash.

Bacterial culture prepared for testing new antibiotic candidates.

Humans, animals, plants and the environment we all share face escalating risks from antimicrobial resistance (AMR), with the potential for irreversible damage ever more likely. Both our health and the health of the planet are at stake, says a leading champion for more action.

We know what to do. One Health thinking has been with us for as long as the European Health Forum Gastein, which celebrated its 25th anniversary at last week’s annual meeting. But the COVID-19 pandemic has loudly proclaimed this to be an even greater imperative by underlining the interplay between human behaviour, public health and economic development as never before. What’s required now is for the global community to put health – human, animal and environmental – at the core of policy-making.

The G7 summit in Elmau a few months ago recognised this imperative with a commitment “to work in partnership to strengthen health systems worldwide and step up our efforts in pandemic prevention, preparedness and response under the One Health approach”. The G7 leaders included AMR in their final communiqué, promising to “spare no efforts to continue addressing this silent pandemic.”

A threat with more deadly potential than COVID-19

As the United Kingdom’s Special Envoy on AMR, I see it as my duty to educate the world about this threat that we all face from the increasing prevalence of drug-resistant microbes – including bacteria, viruses and parasites.

This is a pandemic which has the potential to be more deadly than COVID-19. It is already associated with five million deaths a year, making AMR the third-leading underlying cause of death globally. According to a ground-breaking study in The Lancet, published in January, drug-resistant bacteria alone were responsible for some 1.27 million deaths in 2019.

Meanwhile, a landmark O’Neill Review study has predicted that the death toll from AMR could reach 10 million each year by 2050 – if we don’t change the trajectory of drug resistance now.

Disproportionately affects the most vulnerable

Tragically, AMR disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable in our world, with much of the burden of AMR deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa where access to antibiotics and drugs is generally more constrained as is the laboratory capacity to detect drug-resistant microbes.

Lives and livelihoods are at stake, with the World Bank estimating that as many as 24 million more people could be forced into extreme poverty unless we collectively intervene.

Without antibiotics, I’ve said (with English understatement), “we would be in a really dreadful mess” or, more bluntly, “a post-antibiotic apocalypse”. Animals would die, plants would die and so would we humans in rising numbers, as our ability to produce food for the world’s growing population stalls. 

This is not some sci-fi scenario gorily filmed by Ridley Scott, but a clear and present danger to us all. So, the time to act is overdue. Because, as one colleague has put it: “The superbugs are beating us at a competition we can’t afford to lose.”

Fixing market failures

Antibiotics being distributed at a pharmacy in India.

There are hurdles to be overcome but they are not insuperable with sufficient public health leadership and political will. 

First and foremost, we need to fix a profound and protracted market failure. There has been no new class of antibiotics discovered in four decades. Chillingly, the World Health Organization (WHO) has identified that the clinical pipeline of antibiotics is insufficient to address resistance because so few drugs in development are truly innovative, or address the most dangerous classes of pathogens. 

A lack of incentives means that, unfortunately, the small start-ups that are the engines behind innovations can easily fall at the last hurdle or simply go bust – so new antibiotic discoveries never reach the patients who need them most.

We must redouble our efforts to find solutions that draw companies back to antibiotic development. The AMR Action Fund, which emerged from conversations between the WHO, Wellcome Trust and the pharmaceutical industry, is now backed by $1 billion in investment capital from some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies. Designated for small and medium biotech firms with promising innovations, the Fund aims to stimulate the development of two to four new antibiotics by 2030. This is a great start. Now, we need more than this promising initiative.

More ‘pull’ incentives

The G7 has also committed to exploring ‘pull’ incentives to enable new antibiotics to come to market, and ensure that they are accessible to those who need them most, whilst guaranteeing responsible and appropriate use.

I am proud that England has led the way with its pilot scheme involving a subscription payment model for new antibiotics, with robust stewardship requirements. Following this model, the UK Government will start paying drug companies a fixed fee for supplying antibiotics. This will help tackle the growing global crisis over resistance to drugs and ensure that the treatments are accessible to patients enrolled in the National Health Service. A similar model could be adopted in the US in the form of the Pasteur Act before Congress which also offers upfront funding of up to $3 billion.

One Health and AMR

Inspecting a pig’s health in Busia in western Kenya.

Of course, the scope of fighting AMR in the One Health context involves many interventions across a range of sectors.

It involves steps to foster more rational, appropriate use of existing drugs for both human and animal health. It also involves the need to prevent zoonotic diseases from leaping the human-animal barrier as a result of ecosystem degradation and poor food safety practices. Similarly, more prudent use of antibiotics and other drugs is critical in the plant health and animal health sector, alongside that of human health. 

And at the same time, One Health thinking goes way beyond AMR to include the ways we foster healthier, more sustainable development that prevents disease from ever occurring While the term has been with us for two decades or more, One Health concepts have yet to be fully integrated into public health policy-making, as experience with the COVID pandemic and earlier outbreaks such as Ebola has underlined.

Last year, I convened The Trinity Challenge, bringing together the private sector and academia, united by the common aim of developing insights and actions to contribute to a world better protected from global health emergencies.

Over 340 applicants from over 60 countries shared their creative ideas, and I am proud that the winning solution, the Participatory One Health Disease Detection (PODD) from OpenDream in Thailand, empowers farmers to identify and report zoonotic diseases that could potentially pass from animals to humans, triggering another pandemic. Hopefully, we will see more approaches like this in the future.

To close the gaps in prevention, preparedness and response, we need a sustained exit from silo thinking and collaboration across countries and sectors. One Health thinking must come with One World policy-making that treats issues such as global food security, animal well-being and environmental sustainability as one paramount priority. We are, truly, all in this together.

Dame Sally Davies
Dame Sally Davies

Dame Sally Davies was appointed as the UK Government’s Special Envoy on AMR in 2019. She is also the 40th Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University. She was the Chief Medical Officer for England and Senior Medical Advisor to the UK Government from 2011-2019. She served as a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Executive Board from 2014-2016, and as co-convener of the United Nations Inter-Agency Co-ordination Group (IACG) on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), reporting in 2019. In 2020, Dame Sally was announced as a member of the new UN Global Leaders Group on AMR, serving alongside prominent figures from around the world to advocate for action on AMR. In 2020, Dame Sally became the second woman (and the first outside the Royal family) to be appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) for services to public health and research, having received her DBE in 2009.

 

Image Credits: WHO, AMR Industry Alliance, ILRI / Charlie Pye-Smith.

After Eugen Ghita arrived in Greece from his native Romania, he did not have a legal residency document, which meant that he did not have access to any kind of public services, including healthcare.

“The first two years health was equivalent to having money,” he recalls, sharing his experience during the latest episode of the “Global Health Matters” podcast with host Garry Aslanyan. “For this reason, it was very difficult to stay healthy in the first six months because there was no program for us as economic refugees.”

Today Ghita serves as Human Rights Monitor and President of the Roma Lawyers Association.

One billion migrants

Lack of documentation, language and cultural barriers and the restrictive policies that more and more governments are implementing represent some of the biggest challenges for migrants and refugees to access healthcare, as Aslanyan discusses with his guest Reem Mussa, Humanitarian Advisor and Coordinator of the Forced Migration Team at Médecins Sans Frontières. Often, the consequences are very severe.

“The WHO World Report on health of refugees and migrants estimates that there are some 1 billion migrants globally,” says Aslanyan. “The report highlights migration and displacement as key influential determinants of health and well-being and urges for collective action to ensure that health is a reality for all refugees and migrants.”

Mussa emphasises that there are several types of migrants, including those who move countries for study or work purposes. However, those who are in the most vulnerable conditions are usually those who pay the highest price for lack of healthcare.

“We know that there’s a portion of migrants globally, particularly those that are forced migrants or undocumented migrants or labour migrants, particularly from the global south, that often are exposed to various poor health outcomes linked to the migration journey itself, but also linked to the policies and health systems in countries in which they arrive,” he says.

Separating border control and healthcare services

According to Mussa, in order to encourage those in need to seek care – especially those who lack proper documentation – one of the key elements is to maintain a strict separation between border control and healthcare services. Providing primary health care is also essential.

“If you exclude people from the health care system, you’re only going to see them when they end up in the emergency room and that becomes a challenge,” he notices.

The health journey of refugees and migrants is global health - Global Health Matters podcast
The health journey of refugees and migrants is global health – Global Health Matters podcast

Aslanyan and Mussa discuss how many governments are implementing increasingly restrictive policies, including policies that have proven to cause highly negative health outcomes, such as offshore processing.

On the other hand, Mussa emphasises how the way many countries have been willing to welcome and care for the influx of refugees from Ukraine is an example of what can be done for migrants and asylum seekers when there is the political will.

“People that arrived from Ukraine were able to apply for a temporary protection directive which also allowed them to have access to the health care system in the countries in which they arrived,” he says. “That’s very key.”

Image Credits: Global Health Matters, TDR, Global Health Matters Podcast, TDR.

Shionogi’s ensitrelvir

The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) has signed a voluntary licence agreement with Japanese pharmaceutical company, Shionogi, to enable generic companies to produce its COVID-19 antiviral treatment pill candidate, provided it gets regulatory approval.

The pill, ensitrelvir fumaric acid, has already shown efficacy in a phase 2/ 3 trial involving 1,821 COVID-19 patients from Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. Those who were given ensitrelvir once a day for five days recovered 24 hours faster than those who received a placebo, Shionogi announced last week.

According to the voluntary licence agreement,  the MPP will be able to grant sub-licenses to generic manufacturers to produce the pill for manufacture and supply in 117 low and middle-income countries.

“Shionogi will waive royalties on sales in all countries covered by the agreement while COVID-19 remains classified as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization (WHO),” according to a statement from the MPP.

The agreement, signed on Tuesday at a ceremony at Shionogi’s headquarters in Osaka, is pending regulatory authorisation for the pill.

Ensitrelvir is a protease inhibitor created through joint research between Hokkaido University and Shionogi. While clinical trials in Asia through the Phase 2b part of the Phase 2/3 clinical trial in patients with mild and moderate symptoms have been completed, the Phase 2b/3 part of a trial in Asian patients (mainly in Japan) with asymptomatic or mild symptoms is still in progress as it a global Phase 3 trial for SARS-CoV-2 infected patients.

“Shionogi is proud to work on such an innovative licence agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool. This licence agreement will allow people in LMICs to have rapid access to ensitrelvir, following appropriate regulatory approvals,’ said Shionogi director Takuko Sawada.

MMP executive director Charles Gore said the agreement marked the first with a Japanese company, and it “has the potential to increase the affordable options for people living in LMICs to fight COVID-19 and support our collective efforts to put an end to the pandemic and its unacceptable death toll”. 

MPP has invited expressions of interest from potential sublicensees based anywhere in the world for sublicences to manufacture and sell ensitrelvir in the licensed territory.

It is not the first connection between MPP and Shionogi, however, as dolutegravir, an HIV drug licensed from Shionogi to ViiV Healthcare, has been extensively provided to LMICs through MPP’s agreements with ViiV.

Antiviral treatments for COVID-19 are particularly important for many LMICs that have low vaccination rates.

The MPP already has voluntary licenses for the two antivirals recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), with Merck/MSD for molnupiravir and with Pfizer for Paxlovid to help make generic versions of those antiviral drugs available in LMICs. 

Africa CDC’s acting Director General, Dr Ahmed Ogwell Ouma

Global vaccine purchasing mechanisms including Gavi and the United Nations have been urged to purchase a minimum of 30% of their vaccines from African manufacturers, according to a resolution, Call to Action: Africa’s new public health order adopted by African member states on the sidelines of the recent United Nations general assembly (UNGA).

The resolution, championed by the African Union Commission and Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), argues that vaccine-purchasing mechanisms can stimulate private sector investment in vaccine manufacturing.

While Africa currently produces only 1% of its routinely used vaccines, the continent has set a bold target of meeting up to 60% of its vaccine demand through regional manufacturing by 2040.

The full implementation of Africa’s New Public Health Order will drive global health security, according to Africa CDC which presented the call to governments, multilateral organizations, philanthropies, the private sector, and civil society organizations on the sidelines of the 77th UNGA.

Africa CDC’s acting Director General, Dr Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, revealed the five pillars for the order including strong African public health institutions that represent African priorities in global health governance, and expanded manufacturing of vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics to “democratize” access to life-saving medicines and equipment. 

Other pillars include investment in public health workforce and leadership programs to ensure Africa has the workforce it needs to address health threats; and increased domestic investment in health, including the domestic mobilization of financial resources, human capital, technical resources.

Africa’s current ratio of 1.55 health workers (physicians, nurses, and midwives) per 1,000 people is way below the WHO recommendation of at least 4.45 health workers per 1,000 people to deliver essential health services and achieve universal health coverage. 

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa described health workers as a “crucial pillar” in a well-functioning health system. Yet, they have been historically deprioritized in discussions about improving health systems. He described investing in the health workforce as good economics whose return will be “measurable and dependable”.

“Experience shows that professional community health workers who are properly paid, trained, equipped, and supervised are best prepared to provide essential health services in their communities,” said President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

She also highlighted that most community health workers in Africa are women who perform exceptional work but are unpaid for their efforts. “It is time to correct this injustice,” she urged.

Civilian protections
Two Malian former rebel leaders, Attaye Ag Mohamed, left, and Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadan, right, join Geneva Call’s Director General Alain Délétroz, center, at a signing ceremony in Geneva for a Deed of Commitment on Protection of Health Care in Armed Conflict

Leaders of a coalition of former Tuareg and Arab rebels in Mali signed a written pledge on civilian protections for health and medical facilities during armed conflict, reflecting global efforts to stem attacks on health facilities, transport, and patients that have became more frequent since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis.

The two leaders with the movement seeking autonomy for northern Mali signed the Deed of Commitment on Protection of Health Care in Armed Conflict at a closed ceremony organized by the Swiss-based humanitarian organization, Geneva Call, on Friday.

Geneva Call’s Director General Alain Délétroz and the two Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) steering committee members, Attaye Ag Mohamed and Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadan, affirmed their pledges to enforce civilian protections through the Deed of Commitment, which marks a milestone in Geneva Call’s humanitarian dialogue with CMA over the past four years, the humanitarian organization said in a statement.

Despite its “diversity of opinion on certain social issues, the CMA could agree on a document that comprises the main themes of international humanitarian law,” Attaye Ag Mohamed said, adding that the coalition benefited from Geneva Call’s support and expertise.

“Aware of the importance of the free movement of medical missions and their access to populations targets and vice versa, the CMA can only make its modest contribution to their protection as well as to that of humanitarian convoys in Mali and more particularly in the North of the country,” said Mohamed.

“The signing of this act of commitment thus signals a new phase of collaboration,” he said. “It is up to all of us to put it into widespread use in the field through awareness-raising and training on this important topic.”

CMA pledged to respect international laws insisting on the protection of “health care personnel, facilities and medical transports, and the wounded and sick,” and to adhere to “the principles of medical ethics.”

Geneva Call works to strengthen the protection of civilians during armed conflicts in dozens of countries. The issue of protections for health care workers and facilities has become more pressing in conflicts and wars around the world, including Syria and Ukraine.

Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that more than 700 healthcare workers and patients had died, and more than 2000 were injured in attacks on health facilities across 17 emergency-affected countries and fragile settings since December 2017. Countries at risk included Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Mozambique, Nigeria, occupied Palestinian territory, Myanmar and the Central African Republic.

The three-year analysis ws based on data from the WHO’s Surveillance System for Attacks on Healthcare (SSA), which monitors attacks on healthcare workers, patients, facilities, and healthcare transport, the resources that they affected and their immediate impact on health workers and patients.

Working behind the scenes on protecting civilians

Geneva Call has an unusual remit, persuading armed groups and de facto authorities to respect and apply humanitarian norms and human rights.

These include the conduct of hostilities, protections for children, education, food security, health care and cultural heritage, prohibition of sexual and gender-based violence, forced displacement and humanitarian access.

The Geneva-based humanitarian organization, which has worked in around 25 countries since 2000, also boosts civilian protections by strengthening local civil society organizations and their awareness of international humanitarian norms.

As a result, it says, some armed groups have developed their own monitoring bodies for humanitarian norms and human rights, have trained their senior leadership and field commanders to effectively implement these commitments, and facilitated international access for humanitarian aid to flow.

CMA was created in 2014 as a coalition of political-military movements composed of MNLA/MAA/HCUA, present in Mali in the regions of Timbuktu, Gao, Kidal, Taoudeni, and Menaka. In 2015, CMA signed a peace and reconciliation accord in Algiers with the Malian government.

Four years of work on civilian protections in Mali

Geneva Call began working to improve civilian protections in Mali in 2018.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, Geneva Call says it has worked in Mali to ensure health care access and strengthen respect for humanitarian standards and military codes of conduct.

Two armed groups in Mali previously signed commitments to the Geneva-based organization to provide health care access and to try to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus.

Délétroz told the signing ceremony that attacks on hospitals, medical transport and health workers have increased in conflict zones in recent years, paralyzing emergency services and disrupting the local population – with devastating impacts on the lives of staff and patients, both civilians and wounded combatants targeted because they are among the most vulnerable.

“Unfortunately, Mali is not spared from this trend,” he said. “The deterioration of the security situation has also been reflected in increased difficulties for populations to access health care centers and health workers being targeted on a regular basis.”

The Deed of Commitment with CMA is of “paramount importance,” he said, because it “represents an important step in the humanitarian dialogue initiated four years ago by Geneva Call and the members of the Coordination of the Movements of Azawad.”

On CMA’s side, the coalition affirmed it will improve civilian protections generally and respect and protect health structures and medical missions during armed conflicts in particular. The Canton of Geneva is legal custodian of the document, the first one signed with Geneva Call in Mali since it began working there.

And on Geneva Call’s side, there’s also commitment, said Délétroz, since the organization will continue to work with CMA to stick to its pledges under a jointly developed implementation plan.

“We also hope that this signature can serve as an encouragement to all Malian stakeholders who have a role and responsibility to ensure the protection of civilians,” he said. “For Geneva Call remains concerned about the situation of populations impacted by this conflict.”

Image Credits: Geneva Call.

Malaria control in Nigeria
Health volunteers pick up supplies during a seasonal malaria chemoprevention campaign in Nigeria.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a new initiative to counter the added malaria threat posed by the rapid expansion on the African continent of the mosquito Anopheles stephensi — native to parts of South Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, the organization said this week. 

The initiative comes just as the world struggles to get malaria control back on track – something that the invasive An. stephensi mosquito, which belongs to the same subgenus as  Anopheles gambiae, the primary malaria vector in Africa, expands its range.

“We are still learning about the presence of Anopheles stephensi and its role in malaria transmission in Africa,” said Dr Jan Kolaczinski, who leads the Vector Control and Insecticide Resistance unit within WHO’s Global Malaria Programme. “It is important to underscore that we still don’t know how far the mosquito species has already spread, and how much of a problem it is or could be.”

But with detections of the new vector already reported in several African countries including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria, WHO is sounding the alarm bell to Africa’s national malaria programmes. This is particularly the case because of the vector’s ability to thrive in urban settings – unlike An. gambiae.

Moreover, the vector has been found to be resistant to many of the insecticides used today for malaria control – thus posing an added challenge. One study projected that An. stephensi could put an additional 126 million people in Africa at risk of malaria if the mosquito vector were to spread unchecked. Another study estimated that the number of malaria cases in Ethiopia could increase by 50% if An. stephensi were to spread to all receptive areas.

Vector’s ability to spread in cities a big concern

African countries with detected spread of the An. Stephensi mosquito vector.

Of particular concern is the vector’s ability to spread in cities; as Africa undergoes rapid urbanization with 40% of people now living in cities. The WHO noted that An. stephensi is thought to have contributed to a resurgence of malaria in Djibouti City and at least one outbreak of the disease in Ethiopia —both in  2012. So while the overall contribution of An. stephensi to malaria transmission in the region today remains unclear, there is considerable potential for this highly efficient and adaptable malaria vector to undermine the gains made in reducing the burden of the disease, experts say.

For Africa then, the new WHO initiative, described in detail in a new policy brief, could be decisive in the battle to halt further spread of An. stephensi in the region, as well as determining whether it can be eliminated from areas that have already been invaded. 

Specifically, the initiative aims to: strengthen surveillance to determine the extent of the spread of An. stephensi and its role in malaria transmission; and increase collaboration across sectors and borders so as to improve information exchange on the presence of An. stephensi and the success of efforts to control it.

The initiative also will develop guidance for national malaria control programmes on appropriate ways to respond to An. stephensi, and prioritize research to evaluate the impact of interventions and tools against the mosquito vector.

Getting malaria control back on track

In 2020, malaria deaths rose by 12% as compared to the year before, as a result of pandemic-related service interruptions. Following a longstanding pattern, the vast majority of all malaria cases (95%) and malaria deaths (96%) were located in the African Region, with an estimated 80% of all malaria deaths in the region among children under the age of 5.

In June 2022, Philip Welkhoff, Director of the Malaria Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, told Health Policy Watch that the world has lost years of progress on malaria control thanks to the COVID pandemic, with malaria mortality close to what it was almost a decade ago.

“Malaria is really unforgiving. And when there are disruptions in either access to care or some of the routine services, that malaria burden will go up. Because of COVID, we’ve gone backwards,” Welkhoff said, in an interview.

The latest, 2021 data now shows signs of recovery in malaria control programmes, according to the latest report of the Global Fund, with increased rates of testing and diagnosis in particular.

Now more than ever, however, “integrated action” that combines all available tools for vector surveillance, control, diagnosis and treatment, will be important in tackling the additional threats posed by An. stephensi to malaria control goals, said Dr Ebenezer Baba, malaria advisor for the WHO African Region.

“Integrated action will be key to success against Anopheles stephensi and other vector-borne diseases. Shifting our focus to integrated and locally adapted vector control can save both money and lives,” he said.

See the related story here:

https://healthpolicy-watch.news/tb-hiv-malaria-rebounds-pre-pandemic-level/

Image Credits: Munira Ismail_MSH, WHO .