African nations will struggle to gain access to the full range of COVID-19 therapeutics because of high cost and limited supplies, according to the World Health Organization.
“The deep inequity that left Africa at the back of the queue for vaccines must not be repeated with life saving treatments,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, director of WHO’s regional office for Africa, during a press conference Thursday.
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Expensive and limited: Patients with severe forms of the virus are currently treated with corticosteroids, which are largely available and affordable, and medical oxygen supplies, which are limited in many settings.
But other treatments are more pricey. Casirivimab/imdevimab, for example, which can help people from advancing to more severe disease, costs between $550 to $1,220 for a single dose, Moeti said.
Even with efforts to make these drugs available for generic production with the Medicines Patent Pool, they will still be produced in limited quantities in the immediate future, said Harley Feldbaum, head of strategy and policy at The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
“The challenge is they will be in short supply, they are in high global demand, and wealthy countries are acting very quickly to secure those supplies,” he said.
“We need more financing to be able to deliver these new therapeutic products,” he added.
Equitable access: WHO has approved 11 therapeutics to treat COVID-19. Following negotiations with pharmaceutical company Roche, the agency shipped vials of tocilizumab, an immunosuppressive drug, to Cape Verde and Uganda. Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Tanzania are also expecting shipments. In July, Médecins Sans Frontières warned that the drug was unaffordable.
“We will have a situation throughout 2022 where these new products will need to be allocated under WHO’s leadership to countries with … the highest number of severe and critical cases so these scarce products have the most impact,” Feldbaum said.
But in terms of preventing wealthy countries from hoarding these drugs, WHO “does not have the power to compel countries to act in one way or another,” he said.
About the author
Sara Jervingsarajerving
Sara Jerving is a Senior Reporter at Devex, where she covers global health. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, VICE News, and Bloomberg News among others. Sara holds a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she was a Lorana Sullivan fellow. She was a finalist for One World Media's Digital Media Award in 2021; a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists in 2018; and she was part of a VICE News Tonight on HBO team that received an Emmy nomination in 2018. She received the Philip Greer Memorial Award from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2014.
