Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been growing interest in expanding local manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, medical devices, and diagnostics in lower- and middle-income countries to address the stark fact that Africa imports 99% of its vaccines and 95% of its medicines.
Numerous initiatives are underway, including those decided upon during the African Union Summit in Ethiopia earlier this year and echoed by World Health Organization’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the Ministerial Consultation on Local Manufacturing at the World Health Assembly in May. Tedros made two complementary points that deserve repeating:
1. Local production can play an important role in improving timely, equitable access to quality, safe, and effective health products and safeguarding health security.
About the authors
Jeffrey L. Sturchio
Jeffrey L. Sturchio is a senior adviser to Rabin Martin, a global health strategy firm. He is chairman of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, TB and Malaria; chairman of the International Society for Urban Health; and former chairman and CEO of Rabin Martin.
Maria Schneider
Maria Schneider is a partner at Rabin Martin, which serves as the secretariat for the Private Sector Roundtable on Global Health Security. PSRT is a coalition of companies from diverse industries — health care, logistics, communications, technology, and energy — that are committed to strengthening health security at the global, regional, national, and local levels.
Kevin Lass
Kevin Lass is a senior consultant at Rabin Martin and a member of the Private Sector Roundtable on Global Health Security secretariat team. Previously, he served as the director of pandemic response for the minister of health in Ontario, where he played a central role in overseeing the province’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout and testing strategy.
