Rwanda’s President, Paul Kagame, has continued in his advocacy for vaccine production in Africa as the need arises daily for the satisfaction of more input which are needed for Africa to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic.
President Kagame, speaking at the virtual Global Health Summit, co-chaired by Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and President of the European Union Commission Ursula von der Leyen, pointed out that ending the scourge of the pandemic will require expanded pathways to vaccine access for populations throughout the world.
“While the Covax facility along with the African Union Vaccine Acquisition Task Team and the Africa CDC has helped to distribute millions of vaccine doses to our continent much more is needed for Africa to defeat the pandemic.
“In the context of developing hubs for manufacturing the vaccines in our continent, Rwanda is in advanced talks with private firms and multilateral agencies to build manufacturing capacity in our region for the raw materials to produce mRNA vaccines,” he said.
President Kagame also noted the need for a solution on the issue of the intellectual property of vaccines so that countries across the world can be granted rights to produce vaccines with which to combat the virus. He emphasized the importance of technology transfer, cooperation on regulatory quality, and training of African engineers and scientists to create a global atmosphere, even on the continent.
To avoid overdependence on others, President Kagame pointed out the importance of health systems in his remarks with such that are built around Universal Health Coverage proving to be resilient during the pandemic.
