‘Time for Africa to develop its own drugs’

CAPE TOWN — African scientists and policy makers are meeting in Cape Town this week to discuss plans for a 600m endowment fund to finance research into new drugs and diagnostics.

They hoped the African Network for Drug and Diagnostics Innovation would help African countries to reduce their reliance on imports, said Anthony MBewu, president of the Medical Research Council. The African Network for Drug and Diagnostics Innovation is the brainchild of the World Health Organisation-sponsored Special Programme for Research and Development on Tropical Diseases, several United Nations agencies and the World Bank.

Africa bears the greatest burden of the world’s diseases, and while there have been a handful of African successes in developing diagnostic tests, the continent has yet to commercialise any new medicines of its own.

Boosting African countries’ ability to produce drugs was a matter of national security, said MBewu. He said SA imported 80% of the pharmaceuticals it needed and Africa could pay a high price for not investing in its own drug manufacturing capacity.

While the US and Europe were planning to provide some vaccines to Africa, they would place their own needs first.

“There are some commitments to African countries to provide 100-million to 150-million doses of H1N1 vaccine, but there are 4-billion people in developing countries,” he said.