A major lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is the need to decolonize transnational governance so that the world is better able to handle both future and current global crises.
In places with low vaccination rates, COVID-19 has the chance to linger, and variants develop and travel. Without global vaccine equity, this entirely predictable pattern will repeat itself.
The new variant is a warning: unless we take urgent action to correct global vaccine inequities, we risk the emergence of further variants, some of which may evade vaccines.
Afrigen will be a technology transfer and training hub: it shares technology and develops skills specifically around how to produce a safe, effective and affordable mRNA vaccine.
The vaccine-sharing initiative is still without its biggest donor – India – while rich countries are diverting spare doses towards youth and booster programmes.
Each dose of Pfizer has a long and complex path involving mixing, storage at temperatures colder than the South Pole and specific protocols that must be followed before it becomes a jab.
Local companies in Africa would find it very challenging to be cost-competitive in the longer run when the current worldwide scarcity of COVID-19 vaccines is overcome.
The inefficient vaccine allocation rules currently in place must be replaced by new cooperative institutional structures and more concrete steps by the Group of Twenty (G20) countries.
Despite some public virtue signalling, the Canadian government is not doing all it can to improve global access to COVID-19 vaccines. Canada has yet to announce its position on the WTO patent waiver.
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand
Part-time lecturer at the Global Health & Social Medicine, Harvard University, and Lecturer at the School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, University of Liberia