Devex CheckUp: An African pharma ‘titan’ ventures into vaccines

It’s a fact we’ve heard and written too many times: Africa is overly reliant on vaccines from abroad, importing 99% of its supply. That didn’t seem to be a global health priority — until COVID-19 came along and many African countries were left waiting for doses to arrive. There are now efforts to change that, with the African Union setting an ambitious goal: African manufacturers should develop, produce, and supply more than 60% of the continent’s vaccine needs by 2040 — up from less than 1% currently. But just how feasible is that? African manufacturers and potential investors are looking at one pharmaceutical company as a test case, namely South African company Aspen Pharmacare, dubbed by one expert as “a titan of the African pharmaceutical production landscape.” Last year, Aspen signed a 10-year deal with the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, to manufacture and distribute four vaccines across Africa. It also secured $30 million in funding from CEPI and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in support of this effort. There’s no set date yet when the actual vaccines will be available. But the big question for Aspen and others in the continent is what the market will be for these locally produced vaccines. In late 2021, the company struck a deal to produce and sell its own version of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine for the African market. But no orders came. Local manufacturers are also worried they won’t be a priority for international procurement agencies, although Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which claims to be the biggest supplier of vaccines in Africa, has announced plans to include more African manufacturers in its procurement process. “Ultimately, the proof will be in the pudding in terms of whether we start seeing regional procurement mechanisms put into place,” Stavros Nicolaou, the senior executive for strategic trade development at Aspen, tells Devex contributor Andrew Green. Read: Global south watches as South Africa's Aspen ventures into vaccines (Pro) + Not yet a Devex Pro member? Start your 15-day free trial of Pro today to read the piece. Connecting lives Speaking of ambitions, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has been working on a digital health strategy with the goal of connecting all health facilities and health care providers to the internet by 2030. Sounds ambitious? Jean Philbert Nsengimana, the agency’s chief digital health adviser, thinks so too. But he believes it’s the only way the African continent can reach universal health coverage by 2030. “I just can't imagine a world in which by 2030, a health care provider wouldn't have an internet connection. What kind of Africa is that?” Nsengimana tells our colleague Sara Jerving. Some health workers are already using the internet to deliver services. Lilian Anyanga, a community health worker in Kenya, uses mobile app CommCare on patient visits, where it guides her on which questions to ask and allows for health data storage. The app is the flagship product of tech company Dimagi, which is now testing another product, called CommCare Connect, to allow these same health workers to earn money for additional work. If Anyanga decides to do additional health screenings during those patient visits, such as checking on patients’ mental health, she could get paid extra for it, our colleague Catherine Cheney reports. The challenge is to make sure it doesn’t overwhelm already overworked and underpaid health professionals. Read: Africa CDC aims to be more tech-savvy with new digital health strategy Plus: Could this app transform delivery of last-mile health services? (Pro) Disease X Ten Nigerians in Guangzhou, China, have been infected with an unknown deadly flu-like disease, said Dr. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, the acting director of Africa CDC, during a press briefing today. Of the 10 people infected, seven have been hospitalized, and three have died. He said he has not received information that any Chinese citizens have been affected by the disease, and those that have come down with it have recently traveled to Nigeria. They tested negative for COVID-19. Africa CDC is monitoring this outbreak closely, he said, working with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and authorities in Nigeria to identify the source of the outbreak and work toward an effective response in both countries. “If there is any link to the continent, we also want to be ahead of that particular outbreak,” Ouma said. China is also experiencing a severe wave of COVID-19 cases sweeping through the country following a reversal of its “zero-COVID” policy. Sara will be following this story as it develops. PEPFAR turns 20 PEPFAR, a U.S. global health program focused on addressing the HIV and AIDS global epidemic, turns 20 this year. In December, former U.S. President George W. Bush — who created PEPFAR in 2003 — recalled how he ended up supporting its creation: Condoleezza Rice, then his national security adviser, told him of a pandemic that was “destroying an entire generation” in Africa. “When you’re the president, there’s a lot of hyperbole. You know, in order to get something done, people exaggerate. I said prove it. And she did,” he said. There was of course an army of people that played a huge role in making PEPFAR happen, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, who just retired from government service in December, and the AIDS activists who challenged the U.S. government to do more. Today, Dr. John Nkengasong helms PEPFAR. In Devex interviews, he’s spoken of leveraging the program’s resources to tackle other diseases and engaging financial institutions to boost medical manufacturing in the African continent. “We have to recognize that we are in an era of multiple pandemics,” he said. “Until you get that outbreak out of your way, you cannot do HIV work.” Background reading: Nkengasong's vision for PEPFAR in an 'era of multiple pandemics' Access denied Shortly after his inauguration as United States president in January 2021, Joe Biden issued a presidential memorandum specifying that women “should have access to the healthcare they need.” That applies to women in the U.S. and globally. But it turns out, that policy isn’t reaching his own diplomats. In December 2021, more than 200 employees of the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development sent a letter to senior officials in Washington, requesting that they be provided access to the same reproductive health services available in the U.S. while they serve abroad. They argued that female diplomats were often denied access to services, such as rape kits, emergency contraceptives, and abortion medications, and have “inconsistent access to trained professionals,” particularly obstetrician-gynecologists. A year on from that letter, U.S. Senators Robert Menendez and Jeanne Shaheen are seeking answers from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and USAID Administrator Samantha Power on what they have done and further plan to do to address these concerns, giving them until Feb. 6 to respond. What we’re reading A doctor working for the World Health Organization has been abducted in Mali. [Reuters] How a substandard cancer drug for children continues to be used in many low- and middle-income countries. [The Bureau of Investigative Journalism] More than 1,000 people have died in Malawi’s cholera outbreak. [Al Jazeera] Sara Jerving contributed to this edition of Devex CheckUp.