, COVID-19 Think Tank, Nigeria.
Live Well Initiative Academy Nigeria, Lagos, Nigeria.
Global Health. 2021 Mar 3;17(1):24. doi: 10.1186/s12992-021-00668-6.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a biosecurity threat, and many resource-rich countries are stockpiling and/or making plans to secure supplies of vaccine, therapeutics, and diagnostics for their citizens. We review the products that are being investigated for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of COVID-19; discuss the challenges that countries in sub-Saharan Africa may face with access to COVID-19 vaccine, therapeutics, and diagnostics due to the limited capacity to manufacture them in Africa; and make recommendations on actions to mitigate these challenges and ensure health security in sub-Saharan Africa during this unprecedented pandemic and future public-health crises.
Sub-Saharan Africa will not be self-reliant for COVID-19 vaccines when they are developed. It can, however, take advantage of existing initiatives aimed at supporting COVID-19 vaccine access to resource-limited settings such as partnership with AstraZeneca, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation, the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunisation, the Serum Institute of India, and the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Technology Access Pool. Accessing effective COVID-19 therapeutics will also be a major challenge for countries in sub-Saharan Africa, as production of therapeutics is frequently geared towards profitable Western markets and is ill-adapted to sub-Saharan Africa realities. The region can benefit from pooled procurement of COVID-19 therapy by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in partnership with the African Union. If the use of convalescent plasma for the treatment of patients who are severely ill is found to be effective, access to the product will be minimally challenging since the region has a pool of recovered patients and human resources that can man supportive laboratories. The region also needs to drive the local development of rapid-test kits and other diagnostics for COVID-19.
Access to vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics for COVID-19 will be a challenge for sub-Saharan Africans. This challenge should be confronted by collaborating with vaccine developers; pooled procurement of COVID-19 therapeutics; and local development of testing and diagnostic materials. The COVID-19 pandemic should be a wake-up call for sub-Saharan Africa to build vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics manufacturing capacity as one of the resources needed to address public-health crises.
新冠疫情是一种生物安全威胁，许多资源丰富的国家正在储备和/或计划为其公民确保疫苗、疗法和诊断试剂的供应。我们回顾了正在研究用于预防、诊断和治疗新冠病毒的产品；讨论了撒哈拉以南非洲国家在获得新冠疫苗、疗法和诊断试剂方面可能面临的挑战，因为非洲制造这些产品的能力有限；并就减轻这些挑战的行动提出建议，以确保撒哈拉以南非洲在这场前所未有的大流行和未来的公共卫生危机期间的卫生安全。
当新冠疫苗研发出来时，撒哈拉以南非洲国家将无法实现自给自足。然而，它可以利用现有的旨在支持向资源有限地区提供新冠疫苗的倡议，例如与阿斯利康、流行病防范创新联盟、全球疫苗免疫联盟、印度血清研究所和世界卫生组织新冠疫情技术获取池合作。获得有效的新冠疗法对撒哈拉以南非洲国家来说也是一个重大挑战，因为疗法的生产通常面向有利可图的西方市场，不太适应撒哈拉以南非洲的现实情况。该地区可以受益于非洲疾病控制和预防中心与非洲联盟合作，对新冠疗法进行集中采购。如果使用恢复期血浆治疗重症患者被证明是有效的，那么获得该产品的难度将最小，因为该地区有大量康复患者和可以管理支持性实验室的人力资源。该地区还需要推动快速检测试剂盒和其他新冠诊断试剂的本地开发。
撒哈拉以南非洲人获得新冠疫苗、疗法和诊断试剂将是一个挑战。这一挑战可以通过与疫苗开发商合作、集中采购新冠疗法以及本地开发检测和诊断材料来应对。新冠疫情应该是撒哈拉以南非洲国家建立疫苗、疗法和诊断试剂制造能力的警钟，这是应对公共卫生危机所需的资源之一。
