Kigali: Africa consumes nearly 25 percent of all globally produced vaccines, yet imports 99 percent of its vaccines and 90 percent of its medical supplies. This dependency proved catastrophic during the COVID-19 pandemic, as countries hoarded doses and tightened export controls, leaving Africa at the back of the queue.
According to Global Voices, despite being home to more than 1.4 billion people, Africa meets just 0.2 percent of its own vaccine needs through domestic manufacturing. In 2021, African heads of state agreed to the Saving Lives and Livelihoods (SLL) initiative, a USD 1.5 billion strategy to vaccinate at least 70 percent of the continent's population. The initiative, led by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and funded by the Mastercard Foundation, helped deliver approximately 35 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and expanded genomic sequencing labs from two to 40 across the continent.
The initiative also aims to create a sustainable vaccine manufacturing ecosystem through the Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM), with a goal of achieving vaccine sovereignty by producing 60 percent of the continent's vaccines by 2040. This is crucial as less than three percent of global clinical trials take place in Africa, leading to a disconnect between medicines developed outside the continent and their implications for African patients and health systems.
Dr. Alemayehu Duga, a pharmacovigilance specialist with the Africa CDC, emphasized at a June 2025 workshop that clinical trials in Africa are essential for developing vaccines tailored to African needs. The first phase of the SLL initiative operated in 29 countries, training health workers and improving logistics, resulting in 53 percent of the target population being fully vaccinated.
Despite aspirations outlined in the African Union Agenda 2063 and the African Health Strategy, many African governments fall short in health funding. Under the Abuja Declaration of 2021, AU member states pledged to allocate at least 15 percent of their national budgets to health, a target only met by Rwanda, Botswana, and Cape Verde. Countries like Nigeria allocate as little as five to seven percent, yet Rwanda and Morocco have made strides in pandemic preparedness and local pharmaceutical production.
Across Africa, 25 vaccine manufacturing projects are underway, with initiatives in Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Egypt, and Kenya. The African Medicines Agency aims to harmonize regulatory frameworks, while the Africa CDC is working toward WHO prequalification of eight locally made vaccines by 2030.
In June 2024, Gavi launched the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA), pledging up to USD 1.2 billion to support Africa's vaccine manufacturing capacity. Simultaneously, Afreximbank announced a USD 2 billion commitment to scale health products manufacturing. The second phase of the SLL initiative, backed by a USD 638 million investment, is set to run from August 2024 to December 2025.
