disability
Wheelchair users are often left to grapple with inaccessible services.

From barriers to treatment for people with hearing disabilities to preconceptions about albinism and inaccessible COVID testing for wheelchair users, participants in the Global Disability Summit took a fresh look at the wide range of discriminatory practices that an estimated 1 billion people – 15% of the world’s population – living with disabilities have to face.

This summit, the second of its kind, was sponsored by the International Disability Alliance, the governments of Norway and Ghana, and the World Health Organization, drew some 5500 participants during two days of online proceedings, 16-17 February. The conference covered issues associated with a wide range of physical and mental health disabilities.

Speakers talked about the massive challenges of tackling physical and emotional barriers, as well as the legal policies and stigmatization they face in their day-to-day lives.

Olive Namutebi, Executive Director of Albinism Umbrella, Uganda

“Somebody looks at someone with albinism and thinks that their only problem is skin,” said Olive Namutebi, Executive Director of the Albinism Umbrella, Uganda.

“There is a temperature, malaria, fever, they put me to the skin doctor. I have other issues, I’m a human being. Can I be allowed to express myself instead of you having the precognition, thinking that the only problem I have is skin because I am different?”

Across the summit, speakers and world leaders cried out for more “disability-inclusive” healthcare, education, employment, and livelihoods.

“Social and economic development must be right based and disability inclusive. We must leave no one behind,” said Norway Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre at the opening ceremony of the summit. 

Commiting to inclusivity

The summit called for all – governments, world leaders, health organizations, people with disabilities – to collaborate and commit towards this goal of inclusivity.

“All stakeholders, including governments, civil society, multilateral organisations, the private sector, and other partners, must collaborate on taking a disability inclusive approach. We must design equitable programmes, including health services, to ensure persons with disabilities achieve the highest attainable standard of health, as demanded by the World Health Assembly in 2021,” said the WHO Director-General, President of Ghana, Prime Minister of Norway and President of the the International Disability Alliance in an op-ed in the BMJ. 

People with disabilities are three times more likely to be denied access to healthcare, four times more likely to be treated inadequately in the healthcare system, and twice as likely to suffer catastrophic health expenditure, the op-ed authors stated. Some 80% of people with disabilities live in low- and middle-income countries, where access to basic social and economic services may be especially limited for persons with disabilities.

Accessible healthcare and increased disability training

Ashura Michael, IDA-UNICEF Youth Fellow

Speakers called for more accessible, quality healthcare that combats against ignorance mindsets and lack of information.

“Information is power. So many women die because of the wrong prescription. Some go through with operations when they’re not supposed to [do so],” said Ashura Michael, IDA-UNICEF Youth Fellow, speaking about how sight and hearing disabilities can be a barrier to appropriate diagnosis and treatment.

Michael called for doctors and health practitioners to be trained in sign language, so that they can communicate with deaf people and prescribe the correct treatment and medication.

She also advocated for more funds for resources for people with disabilities in schools, and to make disability training more mainstream.

“We have diversity in our disabilities. Let us come together for betterment of persons with disabilities.”

Namutebi called it ‘everyone’s business’ to get involved, especially for people with disabilities to speak up.

“This is not an isolated case of exclusivity. When you exclude me, you are excluding yourself from advancement or enjoying better services… We need to unlearn some of the thing that we’ve grown up knowing.”

Pandemic disruption 

Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light “significant inequalities” in the way persons with disabilities and other marginalized groups in many countries have been underserved in the provision of COVID-19 related health, social protection and financial services, said Nana Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana, speaking in a keynote address.

The way in which the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the day-to-day obstacles that may be encountered by disabled individuals was echoed by António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations.

“Persons with disabilities are losing their lives at vastly higher rates into persistent barriers in our system,” he said.

For instance, when the pandemic led to widespread school closures, many students with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries were left without access to technology and assisted devices for effective remote learning, Guterres pointed out. 

Workers with disabilities faced added worries since they are typically the first to lose their jobs and the last to be rehired, he pointed out.

Disabled women’s health 

Students with disabilities perform dance in rural Bangladesh. Women and girls with disabilities face higher risk of violence and abuse.

One crosscutting theme of this year’s conference was gender – as women with disabilities are even more acutely impacted by discriminatory practices.  The GDS 2022 emphasized the need for gender equality as a key to empowerment of all women and girls with disabilities.  

“Women and girls with disabilities who were already experiencing double discrimination are facing even higher risk of violence and abuse,” said Guterres.

Dr Natalia Kanem, Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund, said that women with disabilities were up to 10 times more likely to experience sexual violence. “Shouldn’t a young woman with disabilities decide what she wants for her own body? Shouldn’t she live free from the harm caused by violence, coercion and abuse?” she said. 

Young women and girls with disabilities are among those groups with the least access to reproductive health information and education, Kanen said, noting that women with disabilities are up to 10-times more likely to experience gender-based violence. 

Said Guterres, “We need to act decisively to realize and promote the rights of persons with disabilities in every corner of the world and in every facet of life. Global inequalities reverberate at the local level when developing countries have struggled financially.” 

The Nairobi-based Bridge Academy helps people with a range of disabilities to build and launch IT careers – paving a way to better livelihoods.

US’ ‘historic’ commitment 

The summit also saw the U.S making a commitment of $25 million over the next five years to the Global Partnership for Assistive Technology, founded by a consortium of partners, including the International Disability Alliance, Norway, Kenya, USAID, WHO and others in 2018.

“We’re committing to disability inclusion as a requirement in all of our humanitarian assistance. This means partnering with persons with disability organisations who all already have the expertise and relationships to make our aid more accessible,” said Samantha Power, of USAID, announcing the commitment. 

The United States made 23 new commitments on disability rights – a vast improvement from the 2018 inaugural summit, when the US made zero commitments. 

Altogether the summit saw over 1250 commitments from national governments, donors, NGOs and the private sector to take concrete steps improving disability rights in areas including: health, education, livelihoods social protection, and capacity building, summit organizers said.

Susceptibility to poverty

People with disabilities are more susceptible to poverty.

Individuals with disabilities are more susceptible to poverty than those without any disabilities.

“Without a disability inclusive approach to recovery and building resilience, persons with disabilities are at an increased risk of being left behind and falling further into poverty,” said Mari Pangestu, Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnerships at the World Bank. 

The theme of poverty and disability was also echoed by Jordan’s King Abdullah II, another featured speaker at the summit. “The political engagement of persons with disabilities is by no means less important than their economic engagement,” he said.

“They are part of societies everywhere, and that must be reflected in education, healthcare, business, sports tourism, in all facets of life. None can be dismissed as a luxury.” 

Examples of other commitments made by countries at the summit included and announcement by the Maldives to increase social protection of people with disabilities, and Angola to strengthen  processes supporting people with disabilities to vote in this year’s election.

Image Credits: Sightsavers.org, Rasmus Gerdin/ Unsplash, GDS, ILO Asia-Pacific, Adam Howarth/Flickr.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at announcement of six African countries to receive mRNA vaccine technology

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa Friday called on Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, and COVAX, the global COVID vaccine consortium to begin procuring African-made versions of vaccines for COVID and other diseases, as soon as a network of new African manufacturing facilities, now in the making, are in full production.

He spoke in Brussels at an event where WHO announced that Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia, as well as South African manufacturers, are to receive technology and training in mRNA vaccine manufacturing from the new WHO-supported Technology Transfer Hub in Cape Town South Africa, where scientists at Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines say they have replicated the Moderna mRNA vaccine formulation.

WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus named the new partner countries at a ceremony hosted by the European Union-African Union Summit, and attended by all six recipient countries, as well as European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, European Council President, Charles Michel, and French President Emmanuel Macron, who holds the rotating EU Council Presidency.

Ramaphosa said that the new hub-and-spoke system of of vaccine R&D development and tech transfer should change the way vaccines are procured in Africa – as well as produced.

COVAX
COVAX vaccine deliveries in Africa – stark supply shortages and dependency on imports from India, the US and Europe were key features of the 2021 vaccine rollout.

“Organizations such as COVAX and Gavi need to commit to buying vaccines from local manufacturers,” Ramaphosa declared, “Instead of going outside of those hubs, they need to buy from the locally-produced hubs once they get going.”

Gavi, established in 2000 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has been procuring vaccines in bulk for over 90 low income countries for over two decades. COVAX, the ambitious global COVID vaccine facility that was co-founded by WHO and managed by Gavi, UNICEF, and others has been the procurement and distribution channel for vaccines during the pandemic.

But those giant Geneva-based agencies and their partners, like the Global Fund, traditionally have raced after the bottom dollar in bulk purchases from big generic producers in Asia, from Europe and the United States.  And their procurement preferences, in turn, have actually driven more industry consolidation and monopoly control over not only vaccines, but a range of much more basic health products from PPE to insecticide treated malaria bednets, UN insiders say  – making it difficult for African manufacturers to even get a foothold.

Now, Ramaphosa and other African leaders are beginning to call that out.  They say that a shift in procurement preferences among the big UN and donor-funded procurement agencies is critical to enable African producers to be sustainable; it would also stimulate African R&D and economies, and eventually reduce the net cost of products that must now be imported.

“This would enhance the spirit of Africa’s determination to enhance biotech sovereignty” said Ramaphosa, and end the era of “Africa being consumers of medical countermeasures for disease produced at high prices that are not affordable to our country.”

Left to right: EC President Ursula von der Leyen, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, EU Council President Charles Michel, French President Emannuel Macron and WHO’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at today’s announcement of six African countries to receive mRNA vaccine technology.

South Africa – approve IP waiver

Ramaphosa also called upon European countries to approve an intellectual property waiver on COVID technology – a so-called “TRIPS waiver” that was proposed by South Africa and India over a year ago at the World Trade Organization.

“Now I come to an uncomfortable point,” said Ramaphosa, “Governments that are really serious about ensuring that the world has access to vacccines should ensure that we approve the TRIPS waiver as we’ve put it forward rather than hide behind IP an the profitability of the originators,” he asserted.  ” When we are talking about the lives of hundreds of milllions of people, rather than the profitability of a few companies, it is not acceptable that Africa is consistently at the back of the queue in relation to access to medicines.

“While we appreciate the donations, they are never a sustainable way or mechanism to build resilience,” said Ramaphosa, adding, “I’m been amazed plesantly at the number of scientists we’ve got on the African continent.  They have just come out of the woodwork, and they are demonstrating enormous capability. And those are the people whose energy we need to unleash…

“And all we need to do that is to approve the TRIPS waiver to empower them, and just give them the energy and that oxygen so that they can surge forward.”

His comments led to some awkward moments on the stage with European Commssion President von der Leyen and other EU officials struggling to respond.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission

Directing her reply to Ramaphosa, von der Leyen suggested that the EU sees the mRNA Tech Transfer initiative as a countervailing force in the industry landscape – limiting “the profitability of the IP owners. That is the companies, that …you were blaming – while protecting a very precious good, and this is the intellectual property, what scientists have developed.

“And here I think we can find the bridge,” she added, saying that both sides share the same goal but have different ways of reaching it.

“The goal is really to make sure that the technology is transferred and dismantled and shown in full scope,” she said in her remarks.  “And for that, we think that compulsory licensing with limited, deeply-cut profits might be a bridge we go together” said Von der Leyen pressing, in live time, an EU alternative to the IP waiver that major European countries have sought to advance in the World Trade Organization, where the issue has been debated behind closed doors for over a year.

African-European friction on intellectual property measures evident at opening

mRNA hub – South Africa: Lab technicians work in laboratories in Afrigen, a Cape Town R&D firm that is part of the WHO mRNA Vaccine Hub

Ramaphosa  also charged that “full operationalization of [South Africa’s ] mRNA hub has been hampered by intellectual property barriers. This could occur in other countries,” he added, referring to the designated recipients of the vaccine technology that South Africa’s has been developing.

There has been a “failure to transfer technology to the hub through non-exclusive licenses to produce, as well as to export and distribute, the COVID-19 vaccines in low- and middle-income countries, including through the COVAX facility,” he added, referring to Moderna’s refusal to share know-how with the hub, which is seeking to replicate their version of an mRNA COVID vaccine.

This, Ramaphosa said, is important to ensuring that the South African hub teams “have all the necessary operating procedures and know-how to manufacture mRNA vaccines at scale and according to international standards…. to support manufacturers in low- and middle-income countries to produce their own vaccines. ”

Two weeks ago, scientists at Afrigen in South African’s tech hub said they believed they had replicated the Moderna jab, based on publicly accessible data. However, they said that scaling up manufacturing would take much longer without Moderna’s assistance. Moderna has so far pledged to not enforce patents during the pandemic – but it also has not proffered a hand to Afrigen.

“Publicly available information, this is not enough,” agreed von der Leyen, in her reply back to the South African leader. “There needs to be in-depth information about a technology. So we have a common goal,” adding that the EC aims to “create the regulatory frame that is really necesssary to make it happen.”

WHO Sidesteps IP Issue

In his remarks at the Belgium ceremony WHO’s Dr Tedros sidestepped the delicate and unresolved IP issues around the hub, saying:

“The aim of the hub is so that manufacturers can receive training in how to produce certain vaccines and the license to do so.”

Primarily set up to address the COVID-19 emergency, the hub – as well as the “spokes” in the six country network, announced today, offer the potential to expand manufacturing capacity for other vaccine products as well, “putting countries in the driver’s seat when it comes to the kinds of vaccines and other products they need to address their health priorities,” said WHO in a press release.

“Depending on the infrastructure, workforce and clinical research and regulatory capacity in place, WHO and partners will work with the beneficiary countries to develop a roadmap and put in place the necessary training and support so that they can start producing vaccines as soon as possible,” WHO said.

Earlier this week, BioNTech announced another major initiative in Africa, shipping ready-made vaccine production facilities in containers to Rwanda and Senegal.

BioNTech it would collaborate with the WHO hub in the employment of trained personnel at its facilities.  But it remains unclear about how BioNTech, which is producing its own proprietary Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, will collaborate with the WHO-supported mRNA hub, which aims to develop and produce vaccines using a competitor’s technology (Moderna) and one that can be freely licensed to boot.

Asked by Health Policy Watch, how the WHO-supported mRNA network is being funded, a WHO spokesperson said, “We need €100 million over 5 years, and we have secured 80% of that from the countries Dr Tedros mentioned in his speech,” without elaborating further.

In her remarks, meanwhile, Von der leyen said that the European Commission, together with Germany, France and Belgium, are investing €40 million in the mRNA technology transfer network, “because we are deeply convinced that it’s the right way to go… It’s a major step forward in Africa’s strategic sovereignty when it comes to vaccines.

“We all know the state of play today. Today of all the vaccines applied in Africa. 1% is produced in Africa, of all the vaccines, and rightly so the goal is in 2040 to have reached a level of 60% of vaccines produced in Africa that are administered in Africa. And this is the precondition.

Turning to Ramaphosa she added, “And here indeed, dear Cyril, I think it is important that, as you said, we limit with this technology transfer, the profitability of the IP owners. ”

In a closing statement Friday, afternoon von der Leyen said that the African Union Commission and the European Union Commission would organize a “college to college meeting” this spring in Brussels with WTO Director General Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to try to define a way forward on the IP issue, adding that the two sides “share the same goal” but have “different ways to reach the goal – there must be a bridge between the two ways.”

Image Credits: UNICEF, Rodger Bosch for MPP/WHO.

Individuals who recovered from COVID-19 and then received at least one shot of the Pfizer mRNA COVID-19 vaccine had a significantly lower risk of reinfection, according to a new study published Wednesday’s New England Journal of Medicine,.

The study was conducted by researchers at Israel’s Clalit Health Services, in collaboration with Ben-Gurion University and Sapir Academic College.

Specifically, the research showed there was an 82% reduction in the risk of reinfection with the virus among recovered and vaccinated 16- to 64-year-olds, and a 60% risk reduction among those aged 65 and older.  Contrary to recommendations in some countries, however, the study also suggested that one shot was sufficient in preventing re-infection with two shots performing no better.

“The results of our study unequivocally show that giving a coronavirus vaccine to people who have recovered is significantly associated with reducing the risk of re-infection,” said Dr. Doron Netzer of Clalit Health Services. However, she said the findings only covered peoples’ risks of re-infection during the Delta wave, and not necessarily Omicron. The latter variant has been less deadly but also more resistant to vaccine-induced protection.

The researchers noted that the results were consistent with data from studies that have shown strong immunologic responses to vaccination in previously infected persons.

Study applicable to Delta not Omicron

The study was conducted from March 1, 2021, the date on which Israel’s Ministry of Health approved the vaccination of people who recovered from COVID-19, through November 26, 2021 – at the height of the Delta wave. Although the study thus only covers the Delta wave, it also provided an opportunity to draw out some general principals on COVID vaccines, the researchers said.

“The surge of the Delta variant provided an epidemiologic opportunity to assess whether the vaccination of patients who had recovered from COVID-19 would provide extra protection against recurrent infection,” the researchers explained in their article.

The team analyzed the data of Clalit patients using advanced statistical methods to test the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing re-infection with the virus among Covid-recovered people  who received the vaccine at least three months after being ill. their infection. They compared reinfection rates among patients who had subsequently received the vaccine and those who had not.

Clalit is Israel’s largest health fund.

In total, 149,032 people over the age of 16 who had recovered from coronavirus were included in the study – 83,356 who received at least one shot after infection. Reinfection occurred in 354 of the vaccinated patients (2.46 cases per 100,000 persons per day) and in 2,168 of the 65,676 unvaccinated patients (10.21 cases per 100,000 persons per day).

“Although vaccine effectiveness was lower among patients who were 65 years of age or older than among younger patients, the vaccine still offered substantial protection among older patients,” the researchers wrote. “However, among the unvaccinated patients, the reinfection rate among the older patients was much lower than that among the younger patients (3.02 cases per 100,000 persons per day vs.10.79 cases per 100,000 persons per day). This observation may be explained if we assume that older patients who had already been infected with SARS-CoV-2 would have observed enhanced social distancing and other required precautions, especially during the surge of the Delta variant, even if they had decided against vaccination.

“Therefore, the differences in reinfection rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated older patients were lower than those in the younger population,” they concluded.

One dose is enough

The research did not show a significant difference in vaccine effectiveness for one dose as compared with two doses.

That is a striking finding in light of the fact that many countries required two COVID jabs, even among recovered people, after a certain interval of time, to gain access to COVID vaccine passes that facilitated entry to leisure sites and travel. Though in Israel, there was a one shot recommendation at the time of the study, and to date, people who have recovered and have received only one vaccine dose before or after recovery are eligible for the pass.

“If you recovered from COVID-19, it is like you got a primary vaccination,” said Dr. Ronen Arbel, the senior researcher and the head of the Maximizing Health Outcomes Research Lab at Sapir Academic College. “It would be best to get vaccinated to boost the infection-induced immunity, but one shot is enough.”

Image Credits: Maccabi Health Services.

noise pollution
Ho Chi Minh City street traffic. The city is one of many that have surpassed acceptable noise levels.

Urban noise pollution, wildfires, and disruptions of life cycles in natural systems are all growing environmental problems with ecological consequences that require greater attention, according to the new Frontier Report published Thursday by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). 

The fourth edition of the report, ‘Noises, Blazes and Mismatches: Emerging Issues of Environmental Concern’, was released days before the resumed fifth session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA), to start on 28 February – 2 March. 

The report was first published in 2016 with an alert to the growing risk of zoonotic diseases, four years before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The Frontiers Report identifies and offers solutions to three environmental issues that merit attention and action from governments and the public at large,” said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen. 

“Urban noise pollution, wildfires and phenological shifts – the three topics of this Frontiers report – are issues that highlight the urgent need to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.”

Urban noise pollution is a growing public health menace 

Algiers is another city where the noise levels have surpassed acceptable levels.

Acceptable noise levels have been surpassed worldwide – in Algiers, Bangkok, Damascus, Dhaka, Ho Chi Minh City, Islamabad, and New York, and more. 

Additionally, one in five EU citizens are affected by the growing public health menace of noise pollution, which already contributes 12,000 premature deaths and almost 50,000 new cases of ischemic heart disease  each year in the European Union. 

Unwanted, prolonged and high-level sounds from road traffic, railways, or leisure activities impair human health and wellbeing – with issues including chronic annoyance and sleep disturbance. This can result in severe heart diseases and metabolic disorders such as diabetes, hearing impairment, and poorer mental health. 

Most vulnerable to noise pollution are the very young and the elderly, as well as marginalized communities near high traffic roads and industrial areas, and those far from green spaces. 

It is also a threat to animals, altering the communication and behavior of various species of birds, insects, and amphibians. 

The Frontiers report has called for urban planners to reduce noise at the source; invest in alternative mobility; and create urban infrastructure that creates positive soundscapes such as tree belts, green walls, green roofs, and more green spaces overall in cities.  

Positive examples include London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone, Berlin’s new cycle lanes on wide roads, and Egypt’s national plan to combat noise. 

Climate change disrupts natural rhythms in plants and animals 

The monarch butterfly’s migration is delayed as a result of climate change, impacting its natural rhythm.

Climate change has increasingly pushed plants and animals out of sync with their natural rhythms, causing interacting species to work off-balanced with each other, or no longer at the same rate. 

Plants and animals in terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems use temperature, day-length, or rainfall as cues for when to unfold leaves or flower, bear fruit, breed, nestle, pollinate, or transform in other ways. Phenology is the timing of these recurring life cycle stages that are driven by environmental forces and interacting species in ecosystems. 

However, as a result of climate change, these timings are becoming increasingly disrupted, such as when plants shift life cycles faster than the herbivores that consume them. 

Long-distance migratory species are particularly vulnerable to phenological changes, as climate cues that trigger migration may no longer accurately predict the conditions at their destination and resting sites along the way. 

For example, the 6-day delayed migration of the Eastern Monarch butterfly has impacted their breeding and access to food, and the resilience of the overall species is weakened as a result, impacting other parts of an interconnected ecosystem. 

Crops and commercially important marine species may also shift in their natural rhythms, creating additional challenges for food production that already occur as a result of climate change and COVID-19. 

The report proposes further research be conducted to understand the implications of these phenological mismatches, as well as maintaining suitable habitats and ecological connectivity, strengthening biological diversity, and above all, limiting the rate of global warming by reducing CO2 emissions.

Chief UNEP Scientist Andrea Hinwood

  

“All governments and all countries need to consider their environmental impacts and they all certainly need to consider the multiple health activities which impact ecosystems and biodiversity and subsequently health,” said Chief UNEP Scientist Andrea Hinwood during a launch of the report.

“All of the actions that will make a difference in terms of protecting the resilience of our ecosystems ultimately protect us because we’re protecting against climate change.”

Wildfires projected to get worse 

Forest wildfires have gotten worse in recent years, with climate change prompting hotter temperatures and drier conditions.

Dangerous wildfire weather conditions are projected to become more frequent, more intense, and more severe, including in areas previously affected by fires. 

This is the result of climate change, including hotter temperatures and drier conditions with more frequent droughts. Intense wildfires can trigger thunderstorms in smoke flumes, generating lightning that ignites other fires beyond the original fire – a hazardous feedback loop.

Already an average of about 423 million hectares or 4.23 million square km of the Earth’s land surface – an area about the size of the entire European Union – has burned each year, between 2002 and 2016. 

In addition, an estimated 67% of annual global area burned by all types of fires, including wildfires, was on the African continent. 

Long-term effects on human health extend beyond those fighting wildfires, evacuated, or suffering losses. 

Downwind settlements, sometimes thousands of kilometers from the source, are still vulnerable to health consequences from fires, especially those with pre-existing illnesses, women, children, elderly and the poor.

Maarten Kappelle, Head of Thematic Assessments at UNEP

The report calls for greater investment in reducing the risks of wildfires; development of prevention and response management approaches to wildfires that address vulnerable, rural, traditional, and indigenous communities; and further refinements in remote sensing, including satellites, radar, and lightning detection. 

“To manage wildfires more successfully, we must take measures that would prevent them from becoming uncontrollable,” said Maarten Kappelle, Head of Thematic Assessments at UNEP.

Image Credits: tph567/Flickr, hyde/Flickr, Paul VanDerWerf/Flickr, UNEP, Project LM/Flickr.

Charles Michel, President of the European Council

European Union President Charles Michel congratulated African countries for their efforts to stimulate more vaccine manufacturing capacity on the continent, in a upbeat opening address at the European Union-African Union Summit, which began Thursday.  

But in a more sobering note Wednesday, Stella Kyriakides, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, called on global health players to prioritize preparations for the next pandemic. 

“The pandemic has been a challenge for all of us. For our citizens, for our societies,” Michel said in his opening remarks at the Summit in Brussels. “It opened our eyes and showed us our strengths, our weaknesses, our successes, our failures.”

European Union-African Union Summit opens, 17 Feb 2022

Against those challenges, he lauded the recent AU moves on achieving more vaccine self-sufficiency:  

“We have to look at what you have been doing in the African Union. In less than a year, you launched the manufacture of four vaccines to reduce pharmaceutical dependence on the African continent. And this is a project you devised for Africans, by Africans. Vaccine production capacity has been set up in South Africa, Senegal and Rwanda.” 

“For us as Europeans, we should be looking at a new way of working, of cooperating with you.” 

Michel was referring to BioNTech’s announcement Wednesday that it would set up modular “BioNTainer” vaccine production facilities in Rwanda and Senegal by mid-2022. 

That, in addition to South Africa’s production of the J&J vaccine, and a new WHO-backed mRNA vaccine hub in South Africa, which was the focus of a high-level WHO visit last week. 

In its gala event in Marburg, Germany on Wednesday, BioNTech executives said they will ship the plug-and-play vaccine facilities to Rwanda and Senegal in 2 modules of six standard freight containers, by mid-2022. 

The BioNTech announcement has been praised by leading African Union figures, including Africa CDC’s John Nkengasong and special envoy Michel Sidibé.

South Africa’s dilemma

But not everyone may be as delighted about the BioNTech initiative.   

Although South Africa was explicitly mentioned as a third “possible” participant in a BioNTech press release – President Cyril Ramaphosa was noticeably absent from the stage of Wednesday’s launch in Marburg – which featured the heads of state of Senegal, Rwanda and Ghana – alongside WHO and Africa CDC.  

Entering the Brussel’s summit on Thursday, Ramaphosa told reporters that he remains interested in pushing ahead on discussions about a temporary waiver of intellectual property restrictions on  COVID-19 vaccine production.

“We are going to discuss the TRIPS waiver,” he shouted back to a press pool – in reference to the hotly-debated waiver that has been sitting before the World Trade Organization TRIPS for over a year now. 

‘Not yet’ convinced by Europe’s moves

While Ramaphosa acknowledged that Europe had stepped up its vaccine donations, he said that  he was “not yet” convinced by the European moves. 

“We need to move through the TRIPS dispensation where we can make our own vaccines, and that will be very important,” said the South African leader who has placed his vaccine production bets on a new WHO-supported mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub, that would develop open-access brands of mRNA vaccines for not only COVID, but other diseases. 

That hub is centered around a group of Cape Town research and manufacturing institutions. 

But some of the hub’s success will depend on how easily it can navigate around existing patent rules on some cutting edge products, like mRNA COVID vaccines. 

Meanwhile, the TRIPS waiver has been staunchly opposed by leading EU countries, such as Germany, as well as by pharma groups that say bilateral deals between country and the private sector are a more stable basis for sustainable expansion of production capacity.  

Invest in health systems – prepare for the future 

Stella Kyriakides, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety

Speaking Wednesday on the eve of the Summit at the 7th EU-Africa Business Forum 2022, Kyriakides stressed that governments need to invest now in measures that can help prepare for future threats, which are sure to come. 

“We must not wait and be complacent. But we need to prepare today for future health emergencies,” Kyriakides said.

Kyriakides noted that while on its part, the EU has been introducing reforms to strengthen a “European Health Union”, the pandemic has expanded awareness that regional preparedness is no longer sufficient.  

 “In order for us to be truly prepared for emerging health threats, we need to be prepared globally,” she said.

In a related move, the European Investment Bank also pledged Thursday to commit some €500 million to a joint WHO-EU initiative strengthening African health systems on the continent.  Most countries continue to fall far short of the longstanding Abuja Declaration to allocate 15% of national government spending on health – and the pandemic has created further setbacks.

Partnering with the African Union 

Against that context, the EU wants to partner more with the African Union on challenges highlighted by the pandemic, such as the need to reinforce global disease surveillance, and building capacity to undertake emergency countermeasures. 

She also pledged the EU’s readiness to assist in building up preparedness by supporting the African Medicines Agency (AMA) and the African Preparedness and Response Authority (APRA). 

She called for the diversification of international supply chains and the resolution of bottlenecks in addition to the expansion of global production of vaccines and therapeutics. 

“Team Europe”, which includes the EU, EU Member states and European financial institutions, is supporting Africa in this regard with more than €1 billion to create an enabling environment for African vaccine manufacturing, and to tackle barriers related to supply chains and demand, she noted.

She also highlighted that the ongoing partnership between the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the Africa CDC is resulting in mutual learning and improved health security for everyone.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also strengthened the mandate of the ECDC so it will be able to support epidemic and outbreak responses, and establish a more structured cooperation with public health actors in Africa.

Pledging the EU’s contined support for the AMA, she described its creation as a crucial moment in Africa’s journey towards a strengthened regulatory system, which will ultimately contribute to the promotion of sovereignty in Africa.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to build healthier, more resilient and more equitable societies, Kyriakides also underlined. But to achieve this, a number of ingredients are essential: 

“They include the availability of vaccines and therapeutics, but also innovation, data and information sharing. And equally important are the sustainable and locally led development as well as a reformed Global Health architecture. The key ingredient though, are partnerships, trusted and effective collaboration, which needs to be based on the exchange of ideas of experiences and perspectives,” she concluded. 

Summit – focus on health systems and vaccine production 

Health is just one of about eight themes of focus at the two-day Summit – along with education, agriculture, climate change, finance and global governance. 

But in the wake of the destabilization created by the pandemic it clearly has even greater importance to participants now – in comparison with past years. 

The EU and AU leaders also are meeting against the backdrop of high regional geopolitical tensions – posed by the continuing threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A Summit press briefing reaffirmed the prior EU commitment to provide 700 million vaccine doses by mid-2022 to developing countries, of which at least 450 million would go to Africa. 

“Team Europe has exported more than half of its production since the crisis began; it supported the creation of ACT-A [the WHO-supported Act Accelerator] which has delivered more than one billion doses (including 350 million vaccines for Africa). And European countries have shared doses destined for their own citizens, including 125 million to African countries where it is the principal donor.” 

Emmanuel Macron, President of France

Along with Charles Michel, the Summit is being hosted by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanual Macron, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council. 

In his keynote remarks before the Summit, Macron also reaffirmed the need to support African health systems, wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown all of our agenda into the air. It’s been more difficult for African countries to deal with COVID because it is a health, economic and social crisis which has been brought to bare on more fragile economies which are on the verge of development, making it even more costly. African budgets do not have the ability to absorb these shocks as ours do,” said the French president.

european investment bank
WHO DG Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and EIB President Werner Hoyer.

The European Investment Bank said Thursday that it would commit €500 million to improving African health systems, as part of a new initiative with the World Health Organization and the European Union.

The joint EIB-WHO-EU statement coincided with the start of an EU-African Union Summit, which is set to talk about how to improve health systems in Africa, as well as stepping up vaccine production.

While there have been some recent, big strides to jump-start more African vaccine manufacturing and related R&D, including in the WHO-supported South African mRNA hub and a BioNTech modular vaccine manufacturing initiative, announced only yesterday (hyperlink please to those two stories), much less attention has been focused on health systems, which are the backbone for service delivery.

And recent data suggests that African health systems, like others worldwide, continue to suffer setbacks in delivery of other routine services, due to the pandemic.

That, along with being chronically underfinanced – with most countries far from the Abuja goal of investing 15% of GDP in health services.  Only two countries – Rwanda and South Africa – had reached the 15% target in 2011, while seven had actually reduced their health budgets proportionate to their national budgets.

The situation had deteriorated further in 2016, with 19 African countries spending less on health as a percentage of their public spending than in the early 2000s. According to the 2016 WHO report, countries with high per capita income such as Algeria, Botswana, South Africa, and Seychelles, do not systematically spend more of their budgets on health, while lower income countries such as Ethiopia, Gambia, and Malawi – have in fact surpassed the 15% goal.

The new initiative aims to address both the pandemic-related and more systematic issues, said a WHO press statement on the EIB investment.

It noted that the investments would be focused on “restoring, expanding and sustaining access to essential health services and increasing financial risk protection; access to vaccines, medicines, diagnostics, devices and other health products; scaling innovative primary health care service delivery models and investing in a health workforce to deliver effective quality care.

“The shared goals of the partnership will achieved by applying a country-led and country-driven approach, identifying gaps in national health systems, designing strategies for interventions and their corresponding investments plans, investing in health system projects and programmes, convening capital providers, supporting implementation and monitoring impact,” said WHO.

EIB President Werner Hoyer, said that the goal of the initiative is to mobilize €1 billion of new investment “to strengthen public health across Africa.”

Said WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “The COVID-19 pandemic is a powerful demonstration that when health is at risk, everything is at risk. Investing in health across Africa is therefore essential not just to promote and protect health, but also as a foundation for lifting people out of poverty and driving inclusive economic growth.”

Image Credits: EIB/Twitter.

depression homelessness
Street scene in Metro Manila, Intramurous district, Philippines. 80-90% of those with depression are left untreated or undiagnosed in low- and middle-income countries. Homelessness is one adverse experience that may cause depression.

With about half of people suffering from depression in high income countries untreated or undiagnosed, with this number rising to 80-90% in low- and middle-income countries, a Lancet and World Psychiatric Association Commission have called for a unified response against this global crisis to reduce the burden of depression.

Depression is estimated to impact 5% of adults globally, with its onset most frequent in young people. COVID-19 has caused ‘mass trauma’ worldwide and has further worsened mental health for millions, creating additional challenges with isolation, bereavement, uncertainty, hardship, and limited access to healthcare. 

To combat the crisis, the Commission’s ‘Time for united action on depression’ calls for a concerted and collaborative front from all – government, healthcare providers, researchers, and people living with depression, to improve care and prevention, fill knowledge gaps, and increase awareness for one of the leading causes of avoidable suffering and premature death worldwide. 

“Depression is a global health crisis that demands responses at multiple levels,” said Commision Chair Professor Helen Herrman.

“This Commission offers an important opportunity for united action to transform approaches to mental health care and prevention globally.”

The report is authored by 25 experts across 11 countries, from experts in neuroscience to global health. It is advised by people with experience of depression. 

Myths surrounding depression fuel inaction 

Myths surrounding mental health have fueled inaction.

While 70-80% of people who die by suicide in high income countries, and around half in LMIC, suffered from mental illness, with depression as the most common cause, myths surrounding this health condition have fueled global inaction towards depression. 

The myths include the misconception that depression is simply sadness, a sign of weakness, or restricted to certain cultural groups.

Depression also has an under-recognized social and economic toll, with the loss in economic productivity linked to depression costing the global economy an estimated $1 trillion a year. 

“There is arguably no other health condition which is as common, as burdensome, as universal, or as treatable as depression, yet it receives little policy attention and resources”, said Commission Co-Chair Associate Professor Christian Kieling, of the Brazil-based Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. 

The Commission does stress that depression is distinctly a health condition that is characterized by persistence, as it inhibits daily functioning and may lead to long-term health consequences. Depression may also impact anyone, regardless of gender, background, social class, and age, though symptoms and signs of depression may vary among groups.

Society and individual strategies proposed 

Mental health services for children and adolescents have been disrupted due to COVID-19. Solutions to reduce the global burden of depression need to prevent adverse experiences in childhood.

Whole-of-society and individual level strategies have been proposed by the Commission to prevent depression, focusing on reduced exposure to adverse experiences in childhood, lifestyle factors, and other stressful events, including financial crisis or bereavement. 

“Prevention is the most neglected aspect of depression. This in part because most interventions are outside of the health sector”, said co-author Dr Lakshmi Vijayakumar from SNEHA, Suicide Prevention Centre and Voluntary Health Services of Chennai, India.

Vijayakumar further noted how crucial these prevention efforts are. 

“In the face of the lifelong effects of adolescent depression, from difficulty in school and future relationships to risk of substance abuse, self-harm, and suicide, investing in depression prevention is excellent value for money. 

It is crucial that we put into practice evidence-based interventions that support parenting, reduce violence in the family, and bullying at school, as well promoting mental health at work and addressing loneliness in older adults.”

Current classification of depression is ‘too simplistic’ 

The current classification that places people with symptoms of depression into just two categories – either they have clinical depression or not – remains too simplistic, says the Commission. 

Instead, the Commission supports a personalized, staged approach to depression care that tailors and recommends interventions to the individual and the severity of their condition. These treatments range from self-help to lifestyle changes to psychological therapies. 

“No two individuals share the exact life story and constitution, which ultimately leads to a unique experience of depression and different needs for help, support, and treatment”, explained Commission Co-Chair Professor Vikram Patel from US-based Harvard Medical School. 

In addition, the Commission also proposes collaborative care strategies that incorporate locally recruited, widely available non-specialists such as community health workers and lay counselors. 

Ultimately, they conclude that greater investment is needed on behalf of the government to reduce the damaging impact of poverty, gender inequity, and other social inequalities on mental health.

Said Patel: “Tackling the climate emergency, the COVID-19 pandemic and other global and regional emergencies that exacerbate existing inequities and threats to health, including pursuit of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, must also be vital parts of efforts to prevent depression.”

Image Credits: Wayne S. Grazio, Nenad Stojkovic/Flickr, WHO/NOOR/Sebastian Liste.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken

CAPE TOWN – The US and Africa intend to use the well-established community networks supported by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to improve the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa.  The initaitive would build upon the infrastructure developed since PEPFAR entered as a major player on the African AIDS scene in 2003. 

In addition, USAID has launched an initiative called Global VAX to support the World Health Organization (WHO) target of vaccinating 70% of the world’s population by mid-year against COVID-19, and will soon be announcing priority countries in Africa.

This is according to US State official Mary Beth Goodman, who briefed African journalists on Tuesday on the COVID-19 Global Action Meeting convened by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday.

“We’re leveraging opportunities through things like PEPFAR, which has an extraordinary network across the African continent in combating HIV/AIDS and has a network of community workers and leaders who are helping to work with us to also talk about some of the importance of COVID,” said Goodman, who is Acting Coordinator for Global COVID-19 Response and Health Security at the US Department of State.

“The same is true of our Presidential Malaria Initiative and other efforts that have long been in place on the continent.

“We actually have launched through USAID and the Centre for Disease Control, a programme that we’re calling Global VAX,” added Goodman. 

“The effort behind Global Vax is all about the uptake issues. How do we turn vaccines into vaccinations? How do we connect the dots to make sure that we are getting these vaccines distributed in a way that allows more people to have the opportunity to take the vaccine and that allows some of these countries which are lagging to meet the 70% target?”

Blinken’s six-point ‘GAP’ plan

Ghana, Africa
Ghanian health worker Evelyn Narkie Dowuona holds up her COVID-19 vaccination card.

Blinken presented a six-point COVID-19 Prioritized Global Action Plan for Enhanced Engagement (GAP) to foreign ministers and senior leaders from countries and international organizations invited to his virtual meeting.

“Together, we identified urgent gaps in response activities and aligned around specific roles to advance global efforts aimed at bringing this pandemic under control and strengthening readiness for future global health threats. We agreed that more political leadership is needed to save lives and end this pandemic cycle in 2022,” said Blinken in a statement issued late Monday.

He identified the “six lines of the global effort to respond to acute pandemic needs” as:

  • Getting Shots in Arms: coordinated efforts to improve vaccine readiness and logistics, in step with increased donations and procurement, toward the goal of at least 70% of the population fully vaccinated with quality, safe, and effective vaccines by September 2022. 
  • Bolstering Supply Chain Resilience: mechanisms to facilitate sufficient and steady supplies of critical products and materials to break this cycle of the COVID-19 pandemic, including establishing mechanisms to identify and remove medical supply chain bottlenecks.
  • Addressing Information Gaps: global efforts to enhance vaccine confidence and combat the spread of false information, enlisting regional champions and medical, civil society, young people, and faith leaders to use evidence-based, accurate, locally relevant messaging.
  • Supporting Health Workers: protecting the health, safety, and wellbeing of frontline health workers, including the need to improve their training and numbers to effectively support the COVID-19 response.
  • Ensuring Acute Non-Vaccine Interventions, including the provision of therapeutics, testing regimes, and oxygen where needed most.
  • Strengthening Global Health Security Architecture to end the current pandemic and. secure future preparedness for health emergencies at the national, regional and global level.

Blinken also announced a direct donation of 5 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine to the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT), the African Union’s vaccine procurement and distribution effort. The US has now donated more than 155 million doses to Africa and 435 million doses worldwide.

Praise for Uganda vaccine effort

Ugandan Health Minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng (left) and French Ambassador to Uganda Jules-Armand Aniambossou with donated AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines.

In his address to the GAP meeting, Blinken praised Uganda for its massive vaccination effort in November and December last year as an example of what is possible.

“In early November, only 14% of all Ugandan adults had received their first dose of the vaccine,” said Blinken.

“Then a major team effort commenced. The Ugandan government led a mass vaccination campaign, carried out by hundreds of health care workers,” he added, and “by late December, almost half of all adults in Uganda had received their first shot – from 14 to 47% in just six weeks”.

Participants in the GAP meeting included  Australia, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany,  India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia,  Senegal, South Africa,Spain, UK, the African Union/Africa Centres for Disease Control, the European Commission, and the WHO.

They have all committed to coordinating parts of the six key areas identified.

Meanwhile, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the meeting that “in some countries, high vaccine coverage, combined with the lower severity of Omicron, is driving a false narrative that the pandemic is over”.

However, the low vaccine coverage and low testing rates in other countries “are creating the ideal conditions for new variants to emerge”, warned Tedros, adding that 116 countries are off track to vaccinate 70% of the population by the middle of this year.

“We can bring the pandemic under control this year – but we are at increased risk of squandering that opportunity,” said Tedros, adding that “in many countries, the issues are not primarily a problem of absorptive capacity. We need to urgently support political leaders to accelerate the rollout of vaccines”.

Image Credits: WHO, Health Journalist Network.

A mother and her child in the Haji camp for internally displaced people in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

More and more children are losing their lives to a measles outbreak in Afghanistan as the country struggles with a humanitarian crisis under the US sanctions on the country’s Taliban regime.

Following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, the US Department of the Treasury froze Afghanistan Central Bank’s reserves, mostly held in US banks, as the Taliban has been on its “specially designated global terrorist group” since 2002, and any support for the group is illegal.

The measles outbreak has hit the malnourished children hard in some of the already marginalized and poor communities in Paktika, Ghor, Badakhshan and other provinces of Afghanistan.

The World Health Organization (WHO) last week confirmed that the number of cases and deaths increased by 18% in the week of 24 January, and 40% in the week of 31 January. Health Policy Watch reported last week that WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus met with the Taliban in Geneva to discuss Afghanistan’s health challenges.

Struggle for meals in the pandemic  

According to the global health body, as many as 35,319 suspected cases of measles and 156 deaths have been reported in Afghanistan between 1 January 2021 and 29 January 2022. Of these, 3,221 cases were laboratory confirmed while 91% of these cases and 97% of these deaths were in children under five years of age.

The WHO says that the rise in measles cases is especially concerning because of the extremely high levels of malnutrition in Afghanistan. This weakens immunity, making people more vulnerable to illness and death from diseases like measles – especially children.

Local civil society activist in Paktika, Abdul Bari, mentioned that with the fall of the previous government, thousands of people lost their jobs and could not support families for months now that ultimately led to malnourishment and spread of the diseases.

 “Many families who were doing relatively well in the past now find them among the so many very poor in the society that struggle to feed one or two meals in Paktika”, he said.

Authorities in Badakhshan province told the Health Policy Watch about an outbreak of measles worst affecting the remote Kuf Ab and Kohistan districts of the province where poverty is widespread.

“The measles outbreak has been spreading in the province for the past two months and has spread to ten districts, including the capital Faiz Abad”, he said, adding that so far no organization or health institution has come to their aid and many children have died due to the disease in Kuf Ab and Kohistan districts.

Equally remote and poor, Ghor province in the central highlands of Afghanistan is the second flashpoint for the measles outbreak according to the Afghan authorities. 

The provincial health department head, Mohammad Nazim, told the Health Policy Watch that more than a thousand children have been referred to the province’s central hospital recently and 21 of whom have died because of measles.

“The reason for the spread of measles is the non-implementation of the vaccination program firstly due to the coronavirus pandemic and then the security concerns and lack of funds”, he said.

 Crumbling Healthcare System

In December 2021, a measles outbreak response immunisation campaign was carried out with the support of the WHO in some of the most affected provinces, reaching 1.5 million children.

Battling for survival, Afghanistan’s fragile health system has been on the edge for months in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Taliban takeover of power and the subsequent US freezing of Afghanistan’s state reserves.

In Ghor, the regional public hospital sources said the doctors and support staff is so overstretched and under-paid that it can collapse any moment in the wake of mounting cases of COVID-19 and now the measles outbreak.

Kabul-based paediatrician Dr Zar Wali told the Health Policy Watch that malnutrition among children was severely compromising their immune system. “On a daily basis I am receiving dozens of child patients from the city (Kabul) as well as the nearby provinces, and there is this clear pattern of malnourishment in almost all, which makes them susceptible to all sorts of diseases”.

This was echoed by the UN Children Fund (UNICEF) last week when it warned that as the humanitarian crisis deepens in Afghanistan, hospitals were receiving so many cases each day of children suffering complications associated with severe acute malnutrition.

After relatively low transmission in 2019 and 2020, new infection cases have been increasing in all provinces since the end of July 2021, with the highest weekly toll observed so far occurring over the last four weeks.

The WHO has warned that although the number of deaths is relatively low, the rapid rise in cases in January 2022 suggests that the number of deaths due to measles is likely to increase sharply in the coming weeks.

Being endemic in Afghanistan, more than 25,000 children get killed by the measles virus annually, according to the Ministry of Public Health, and many more struggle with its impacts.

The WHO has expressed willingness to prepare a plan for a larger measles outbreak response immunisation campaign, which will start in May (or earlier, if possible), aiming to reach more than 3 million children in Afghanistan.

 

Image Credits: © UNICEF Afghanistan.

Margaret Ndomondo-Sigonda, Head of the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation Initiative at AUDA-NEPAD

The African Union could decide on the host country for the African Medicines Agency (AMA) as early as July, while the agency’s director-general should be appointed by the end of the year.

This is according to Margaret Ndomondo-Sigonda, Head of the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation Initiative at AUDA-NEPAD, the African Union’s development agency.

The AU Assembly had recently decided to “do an assessment of the countries that have offered to host the AMA headquarters”, she told a workshop convened by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) on Monday ahead of the EU-AU Summit which starts in Brussels on Thursday.

“The AU Commission and AUDA-NEPAD are working together, and the teams are set to go out in the first week of March,” said Ndomondo-Sigonda, adding that the country visits may take two months to complete. 

“Once they are done, then the assessment report will be presented before the first meeting of the Conference of the State Parties that is planned to be held sometime in May,” she added.

Whatever decision is made by this body would have to go to the AU Assembly during its meeting in in June or July, “so by July we will know which countries actually hosting the headquarters for the African Medicines Agency,” she added.

The Assembly comprises of all Member State Heads of State and Government is the AU’s supreme policy and decision-making organ. 

Director-General may be appointed by year-end

As far as the appointment of the head of the AMA – its director general –  is concerned, this would take a little longer.

First, the Conference of the State Parties would have to consider the terms of reference for the position at its May meeting, and advertisements will only go out after that.

“By the time we get to know who has been appointed as the director-general, it will probably be quarter three or quarter four this year,” she said.

She added that AMA was being established as “a specialised agency of the African Union with its autonomy in terms of financial and human resources, so it’s going to be operating differently from what you see with Africa Centres for Disease Control at the moment”.

Meanwhile, UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima welcomed the imminent establishment of the AMA.

“Since the very beginning of the COVID crisis, the multilateral response may have failed us but African leadership has been remarkable,” said Byanyima at a workshop on Monday. “The newly created African Medicines Agency will harmonise medicine regulations, and negotiate joint purchasing and the manufacture of our own medicines.”