COVID vaccine must be produced in Africa, Latin America, says WTO Director

The head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) said on Thursday that it was of utmost importance to diversify vaccine production and more manufacturing must take place in Africa and Latin America to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. On the eve of a global health summit in Rome, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the WTO, told European Union legislators that normal export and import market forces could not apply when it came to or death issue of COVID-19 vaccines, as many of the richest countries in the world stockpiled the shots for their own population when the coronavirus crisis hit their home ground. She said the world has the capacity to produce about five billion vaccine doses, but because the virus has spread, it is two and three times larger. The capacity was therefore not there. ” One of the biggest challenges is the diversification of vaccine production, which is now 80 percent concentrated in ten European, North American and South Asian countries, Okonjo-Iweala said, calling the situation a problem that has 'come home'.

"It is not normal for Africa, with 1.3 billion people, to have 0.17 percent of the world's manufacturing capacity," she said. "So it needs to change." She added that Latin America has about 2 percent of global production capacity.

The summit on Friday, co-hosted by the executive arm of the European Union and Italy, is expected to attract the Group of 20 industrialized and emerging market countries, the heads of international organizations and representatives of global health institutions.

The European Union intends to collect many of the same points that Okonjo-Iweala has made, specifically to increase production in Africa.

EU countries have criticized the US call for a waiver of COVID-19 vaccine patents as a way to increase stocks, arguing that the move would not bring about any short-term or interim improvement and can have a negative impact.

Okonjo-Iweala wanted to remain neutral on the issue but said WTO members could find the flexibility to ensure that more vaccines are produced in developing countries.