Africa Must Produce COVID-19 Vaccines – AfDB President

▪︎Seeks debt relief for Africa

The President, African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina has said it is unacceptable that the continent cannot produce COVID-19 to cater to its teeming population.

He said that depending on foreign freebies in these terrifying times was a great disservice to the huge potential available in Africa that should be harnessed urgently for the necessary breakthroughs in healthcare and medical science.

Adesina said: “I can’t accept that 1.4 billion people have to be running from pillar to post, looking for vaccines. We ought to be producing vaccines in Africa.

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“We, at the African Development Bank, have therefore decided that we’re going to support Africa to have quality healthcare infrastructure and also make sure that it develops its own pharmaceutical capacity.”

He insisted that African countries deserved urgent debt relief with the continent currently reeling from the debilitating effects of coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking in an interview on CNN’s First Move with Julia Chatterley, Adesina also expressed worries the Bank’s economic outlook indicated that without additional aid, about 39 million Africans risked falling into extreme poverty this year.

“Africa is not looking for a free pass. We’re just looking for a way in which Africa’s fiscal space gets dealt with,” he was reported by Forefront magazine to have said during the interview programme on the CNN.

Adesina, who described the figures as quite disturbing, noted that: “The GDP of Africa went down by $175 billion. Last year, we had 30 million people went into extreme poverty. This year if that trend continues, 39 million people going into extreme poverty, hunger and all of that.”

He said though the economic outlook was not all bad news, expected positives would rely mainly on access to vaccinations.

According to the AfDB boss: “We project that Africa will grow back. The projection is 3.4 per cent grow back this year. But all of that is conditional on two things, one is access to vaccines; and secondly the issue of debt.

“I think that’s important to improve Africa’s access to vaccines. We need to have vaccine solidarity. COVAX is doing a great job, but the amounts are still minuscule as far as we are concerned.”

He also stressed the need for global cooperation to end the pandemic, insisting that: “If we deal with this pandemic in one part of the world, and we don’t deal with other parts of the world, we’re all going back to square one.

“We’ve never seen anything like this before. We projected last year -2.1 per cent, that is the lowest growth rate in 50 years in Africa. You don’t see the virus, but its effects are just so mind boggling. The GDP of Africa went down by $175 billion.

“Last year, we had 30 million people that went into extreme poverty. This year if that trend continues, 39 million people going into extreme poverty, hunger and all of that, it’s been just quite a lot.”