Angola backs COVID-19 vaccine patent waiver

Angola has welcomed a call by Tuesday’s Paris summit to lift patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines for developing countries to produce life-saving jabs.

Angola’s finance minister said her country fully supports the summit’s call and the African Union’s vision to boost vaccine production on the continent.

She said there has to be a self-assessment of Africa’s capacity to receive and of the teams to receive this transfer of knowledge, adding that they do not rule out this possibility.

In April, the AU announced the launch of a partnership to manufacture vaccines at five research centres to be built on the continent within the next 15 years.

The five centres will be located in the north, south, east, west and centre of Africa over the next 10-15 years, according to John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an AU agency.

Currently, only one percent of all vaccines used in Africa are made on the continent. The AU aims to increase that share to 60 percent in 20 years.The proposal to waive patents has been supported by the United States, the European Union and the World Trade Organisation.

The Paris Summit called for a re-allocation of the IMF Special Drawing Rights to increase Africa’s share from 30 billion to 100 billion dollars.