TADESSE MEKONEN | Africa must ramp up investment in healthcare research

Africa is being regarded as the last frontier of the world economy. However, the disparity in healthcare indices between Africa and the developed world is gross. Much of Africa has not built and developed strong health research & development (R&D) capabilities, which could contribute to the discovery and availability of essential health products, services and solutions and improve the health of the population of the continent.

This has been a long-standing concern and mainly attributed to inadequate funding, skills, infrastructure and weak health research governance. However, this huge gap also presents the opportunity to drive this much, much further, across the continent.

Health R&D is a key component of transforming health, equity and development of the population. R&D is critical to advance scientific knowledge, discover and introduce new technologies, products services and solutions that have the ability to address the continent’s healthcare challenges as well as improve the health and wellbeing of Africans.

The continent bears the brunt of dual epidemics of communicable and non-communicable diseases, with a population that is highly vulnerable because of largely poor socioeconomic status. There has been a minimal capability that can swiftly develop vaccines to respond to epidemics and pandemics when they happen, leading to vaccine inequity and health insecurity.

The Covid-19 pandemic did clearly illustrate this. R&D in the vaccine and pharmaceutical space could help discover, develop and create better access to effective vaccines and therapeutics, in a continent where only 1% of vaccines and less than 5% of the pharmaceutical products consumed on the continent are actually manufactured in Africa.

To reduce the existing gap in healthcare R&D between Africa and the rest of the world there is a need to invest in R&D aggressively and progressively.

Member states of the African Union will also need ongoing investment to develop local manufacturing capacity and capabilities to take safe and efficacious essential healthcare products discovered and developed on the continent to the population. To achieve greater success in Innovation, R&D and access to essential medicines and vaccines, a sustained and inclusive collaboration between the public and private sectors is crucial.

There is good news: we are seeing a growing body of evidence to show that this investment and collaboration is taking place. There are some signs of commitment to develop the healthcare R&D on the continent. In April 2021, the World Health Organisation along with SA, announced the selection of Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, an Avacare and IDC company, as a global mRNA technology transfer hub to provide training and Technology transfer to several countries in the world to enable them to develop and manufacture mRNA based vaccines.

Several months later, SA was selected to be one of the six African countries to receive the technology needed to produce mRNA vaccines in Africa. The aim is to empower countries to to have the choice of which vaccines they want to make – actively enabling the country and the rest of the continent to develop ground-breaking solutions that curb diseases such as HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, and so on

Some African-founded healthcare companies are heavily investing to strengthen the R&D capabilities and expertise needed across the continent. Cape Town-based biotechnology company Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, Avacare’s R&D arm,  announced in January that it had successfully produced a lab-scale batch of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine that is similar to the one made by global Biotechnology company, Moderna. This is a critical milestone in the journey towards achieving continental self-sufficiency in health science, discovery, and R&D, as it  illustrated to the world that African companies and countries have the potential to develop technologies and products that are not only needed in Africa but all over the world.

However, these efforts need to be backed-up by commitments from and collaboration between private, government and non-governmental stakeholders. African leaders need to take a stand and say it is now high time to develop and grow R&D in Africa to its full potential. When we start to see the impact of these actions unfold, we will realise the potential of Africa to become an equal competitor of scientific and health innovation on the world stage.

• Dr Mekonen is group executive director: clinical, education and R&D at Avacare Global