President: Africa vaccine access ‘scandalously inefficient’

Rwandan President Paul Kagame described vaccine distribution in Africa as “scandalously inefficient” and warned against building an “invisible wall” around parts of the world unable to secure jabs, AFP reported.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in May said 2 percent of Covid-19 vaccines globally had been administered in Africa, a continent of over 1.2 billion people.

According to AFP, Kagame said efforts to ensure fair vaccine access, including the WHO-backed Covax initiative, remained “scandalously inefficient” and added that depriving Africa risked prolonging the pandemic.

“The fact that Africa is not receiving vaccines, in the end is not good even for those getting the vaccines,” Kagame told AFP and France Inter in an interview.

“The backlash will be there, it will come back to them. If we do it equitably, then we have the chance of eradicating it globally.

“I hope we don’t find ourselves in a situation where it’s like building an invisible wall. Those who have been vaccinated saying ‘we need to remain safe so we need to keep away those who are not vaccinated’.

Kagame said it was essential Africa start manufacturing its own vaccines but pointed to hurdles in the way of investment, intellectual property rights and technology.

“These are things that need to be quickly sorted out,” he said.

“Our desire here in Rwanda, we hope we can see vaccine being manufactured here in no less than a period of one year. That is on a very optimistic side.”

In early May, the US expressed support for lifting intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines to speed up production and distribution around the world.

Many EU countries have expressed skepticism about such a move.