The African Pooled Procurement Mechanism (APPM), established by the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) seeks to to be operational within the next three to five years to ensure the production and procurement of local manufacturing of essential medicines, vaccines and public health supplies for the continent.
This is after Africa’s lack of vaccine manufacturing capacity had devastating consequences in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic when shots were in short supply, as US, European and Asian countries with manufacturing capacity prioritised their own citizens and left African nations last in line.
In SA, private sector pharmacies played a crucial role in the government’s Covid-19 vaccination programme, providing shots manufactured by Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to state patients and medical scheme members. Corporate and independent pharmacies were involved, including about 200 of the Independent Community Pharmacy Association’s (ICPA’s) 1,200 members. They initially administered some J&J shots, but the majority were Pfizer jabs.
“The whole idea is to consolidate demand with two bold objectives including to support member states to have access to medicines that they need and to support vaccine manufactures,” says head of the Africa CDC's Partnership for African Vaccine manufacturing (PAVM), Abebe Genetu Bayih.
“If you give them the predictable demand they [vaccine manufactures] can plan for 10 years and ensue sustainable manufacturing on the continent.”
Bayih was speaking on Wednesday at panel on the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) support of sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing in Africa during the AfCFTA business forum in Kigali, Rwanda.
“As much as the APPM helps with securing markets, we still need to have secured demand for our member states. We are reaching out to member states and regional communities to ensure that African member states prioritise African products when they make a procurement decision and that may come with some sought of premium that they have to be willing to pay,” Bayih said.
The AfCFTA is poised to be a game-changer for the continent. By breaking down trade barriers and facilitating the free movement of goods and services, it has the potential to lift 30-million people out of poverty and double intra-African trade to 38% by 2030.
So far 54 out of 55 AU members have signed up to AfCFTA and 47 countries have ratified the agreement, including SA. According to the AU, removing tariff barriers could increase trade growth by at least 53%, while eliminating nontariff barriers could double intra-African trade.
AfCFTA’s phase two will prioritise the development of investment protocols, competition policies, intellectual property protections, and international trade treaty negotiations.
To support the protection of intellectual property within the continent, the head of the division of intellectual property rights at the AfCFTA secretariat said a continental framework was being developed.
For local pharmaceutical companies, the AfCTA and the APPM provided the platform to aggregate volumes on the continent so that producers could leverage those volumes for procurement , group senior executive at Aspen Pharmacare, Stravos Nicolou, said. /With Tamar Kahn
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