The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) on Tuesday reiterated its ambition to manufacture 60% of the vaccine doses needed on the continent by 2040.
The specialized public health agency of the African Union, recalled in a press release that more than 30 partner organizations had gathered in Senegal for the first workshop for the development of the workforce in co-manufacturing bio- organized by the Africa CDC, the Pasteur Institute of Dakar and the South African Council for Medical Research.
The African continent currently produces only regarding 0.1% of the global vaccine supply, the Africa CDC noted. “To realize this vision of creating greater vaccine supply resilience for Africa, significant investments will need to be made to develop a skilled workforce to be deployed in industry research, development and manufacturing,” he said.
Recent Africa CDC estimates indicate that between 6,000 and 7,000 skilled jobs will need to be created in Africa by 2030 for the range of needs of the vaccine manufacturing industry alone.
The workshop, held from Tuesday to Thursday, should help to fully understand the needs and ambitions for capacity building in Africa, to get a complete picture of the training initiatives available at local, regional and global levels, and to identify gaps and opportunities, according to the Africa CDC.
“This very practical workshop will result in concrete roadmaps to achieve goals in the area of bio-manufacturing workforce development,” he said.
According to the Africa CDC, this high-level meeting will also discuss how to create an enabling ecosystem for scalable and sustainable financing of training programs in Africa and the best model of partnerships and governance in order to achieve the ambition of the continent.
