From Barbara Nel, Africa region Country President, AstraZeneca

By The Inspirer writer.

“I was delighted to see the arrival of a further 117,600 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at Kigali airport, Rwanda, today, May 27th.

“This is wonderful news for the people of Rwanda. On behalf of AstraZeneca, I would like to thank President Kagame, President Macron and our partners at the COVAX coalition, the World Health Organization, Gavi, CEPI and UNICEF for making this possible.

Our vaccine accounts for 97% of COVAX supply to date, with more than 71 million doses delivered to 125 participating countries, including more than 38 African countries. To date, more than 400 Million of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines have been supplied worldwide.”

“All partners in the vaccine alliance are working round the clock to ensure that as many COVID-19 vaccines can get to African nations as soon as possible. Today’s arrival in Rwanda demonstrates the value of governments, industry and others working together to address our continent’s urgent needs.”

“We agree completely with our partners at WHO that the supply of Covid-19 vaccines to African nations has reached a critical point. The decision to suspend vaccine exports from India, as a result of the terrible situation there, has caused a serious supply shortfall in Africa.

The question for everyone in the vaccine alliance now is how we work together to try to make up the shortfall and get more doses to Africa.

First, we agree with our partners at the COVAX global vaccine initiative, that more funding is needed to begin securing new supply of vaccine for delivery through 2021 and into 2022. As WHO said last week, if world leaders rally together, the original COVAX objectives – delivery of 2 billion doses of vaccines worldwide in 2021, and 1.8 billion doses to 92 lower income economies by early 2022 are still well within reach.

Second, we need more countries with the largest supplies to start sharing doses. More and more nations are now doing this. AstraZeneca is working with COVAX to get more vaccines to Africa, and we are pursuing several such options at the present time. The donation from France to Rwanda is a wonderful example of what can be achieved when all partners work together.

Third, the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures. AstraZeneca has risen to the challenge of creating a not-for-profit vaccine that is widely available around the world and we are proud that our COVID-19 vaccine accounts for 96% of all supplies to COVAX.

To make wide vaccine access a reality, we have established 20 supply lines over the last year, spread across the globe and have shared the IP and know-how with dozens of partners, one of which is SII, the largest vaccine manufacturer globally and the main supplier to Africa. In fact, our model is similar to what an open IP model could look like. We will continue working in partnership with other manufacturers, governments and public health experts in all parts of the world in order to provide broad and equitable access to vaccines around the world.