Foreign ministers of the African Union Peace and Security Council (AU PSC) member states have expressed grave concern over the “unfair global distribution” of the COVID-19 vaccines.
The ministers spoke at a virtual ministerial meeting held on Saturday under the chairmanship of Sabri Boukadoum, the foreign minister of Algeria, which is the current PSC chair.
The COVID-19 vaccination pace in Africa is very slow, Boukadoum noted, stressing that this would prolong the pandemic, impede recovery and complicate its negative repercussions that threaten security and stability.
Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and senior officials, including Michel Sidibe, the AU special envoy to the African Medicines Agency, participated in the event.
According to an Algerian foreign ministry statement, the meeting tackled challenges facing African countries to acquire the vaccines, as well as the repercussions of these challenges on security in the continent.
Participants further discussed “means of addressing this issue to ensure that all African countries inoculate their residents and recover from the negative effects of the pandemic.”
The meeting concluded with three main recommendations. First, the need to intensify international cooperation and the equitable distribution of COVID-19 jabs through the COVAX international mechanism, which needs more funding from high-income countries.
Second, the importance of raising the pace of vaccine production by sharing the technology and intellectual property. Third, world countries should work to build and develop the capabilities of African countries to produce all types of vaccines to support health security in Africa and end its foreign dependence on vaccines and drugs in general.
Member states hailed efforts to exempt countries from some provisions of the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights to expand vaccine production capacities across the world.
