Kenya’s health Minister Mutahi Kagwe says vaccine inequality is slowing down the country’s and continent’s effort to combat the spread of the virus.
According to Kagwe, there is need to lift intellectual property rights off vaccines to ensure mass production and timely distribution.
“For us to bring the pandemic to an end, immediate action needs to be taken to ensure the sharing of Intellectual Property Rights with countries to allow for the development of local capacity in vaccine development. Consequently, there is a need to re-evaluate ownership of IP Rights to reflect the true participation in creating the same. Too often, research results and trials conducted in Africa are assumed to be the property of some participants instead of all participants.”
Also read: WHO scandalous vaccine inequity perpetuating COVID-19 pandemic
So far, Africa has reported more than 4.8 million COVID-19 cases, according to the Africa CDC.
The Africa CDC, the specialized healthcare agency of the
African Union, said the death toll from the pandemic stood at over 128,000
while at least 4.3 million patients across the continent had recovered from the
disease.
South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia and Egypt are the countries with the
most cases in the continent, according to the Africa CDC.
In terms of the number of cases, southern Africa is the most affected region, followed by northern Africa and eastern Africa regions, while central Africa is the least affected region in the continent, according to the agency.
