Browsing by Author "Brown, Teri Francis"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Examining the role of the African medicine agency within the framework of the African continental free trade area as a means of addressing vaccine production in Africa
    (University of the Western Cape, 2023) Brown, Teri Francis; Lenaghan, Patricia
    The World Health Organisation (WHO) proclaimed the coronavirus disease of 2019 (Covid19), which was brought on by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, to be a pandemic in March 2020. By late June 2022, there had been 540 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 worldwide, with more than 6.3 million fatalities. In the absence of effective treatments and vaccinations for Covid19, the focus across nations and continents was originally on the implementation of public health strategies to try and slow down the virus' transmission and its subsequent effects on morbidity and mortality. There was a significant demand for efficient immunisations to stop the virus from spreading. As lockdown restrictions were lifted, several vaccines were approved based on their antigenic responses to Covid-19. The rollout of vaccines in Africa took place during the first quarter of 2021. Egypt was the first African nation to start immunisation on 24 January 2021, followed by South Africa on 17 February 2021 and Zimbabwe on 18 February 2021. Other countries, apart from Tanzania, introduced their Covid-19 vaccines between March and April of 2021. The majority of the continents supplies of vaccines came from multilateral organisations, non-governmental organisations, and higher income economies like the United Kingdom and the United States of America.