{"id":44721,"date":"2021-10-31T08:53:11","date_gmt":"2021-10-31T08:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/covid-19-pandemic-cannot-be-brought-under-control-without-global-vaccine-equity\/"},"modified":"2021-11-03T10:28:39","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T10:28:39","slug":"covid-19-pandemic-cannot-be-brought-under-control-without-global-vaccine-equity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/covid-19-pandemic-cannot-be-brought-under-control-without-global-vaccine-equity\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19 pandemic cannot be brought under control without global vaccine equity \u2013 Kagame"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kagame was speaking at the G20 Summit held in Rome, the capital of Italy on Saturday 30th October 2021. <\/p>\n

Kagame is among two African Heads of State invited to attend the summit. He is participating in-person along with his counterpart of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), F\u00e9lix Tshisekedi who is also the current Chairperson of the African Union. <\/p>\n

Kagame delivered his remarks as the Chairperson of African Union Development Agency (NEPAD).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Covid-19 pandemic cannot be brought under control without global vaccine equity, and this is also the precondition for economic recovery,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The President explained that Africans represent nearly 18% of the world\u2019s people, but less than 5% of Covid vaccine doses have reached the continent.<\/p>\n

To this end, the Head of State stated that closing the gap has three components requiring active commitment by the G20, as has already happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, we must ensure a consistent supply of vaccines for low-income countries to meet the target of 70% vaccination by mid-2022. After a slow start, Covax deliveries have picked up, thanks to increased pledges from different countries, among them the United States, the European Union, and its member states among others,\u201d he noted. <\/p>\n

\u201cSecond, national health systems need to be upgraded to efficiently handle mass vaccination. Third, we have to build manufacturing capacity for vaccines in developing countries,\u201d added Kagame. <\/p>\n

Commenting on measures to reduce the continent\u2019s over reliance where 99% of its vaccines are imported, Kagame revealed that Africa targets to produce 60% of needed vaccines by 2040. <\/p>\n

He explained that efforts to build local capacity are underway pointing out an example of recent milestone where Rwanda and Senegal concluded agreements with BioNTech to build end-to-end mRNA vaccine production facilities, starting in mid-2022.<\/p>\n

The agreement will see technology and know-how transferred to build the capacity of local companies, and the doses produced will be distributed in Africa.<\/p>\n

Kagame said that it is an important milestone in which the European Union and the African Union are also playing a key role.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally, continued strengthening of the World Health Organization and Africa CDC is critical, along with support for the new African Medicines Agency,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\"Leaders<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{President Paul Kagame has pointed out three components that can be taken into consideration to achieve global vaccine equity, control COVID-19 pandemic and recover the economy.} <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72,75],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-44721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-featured-news-home","tag-homenews","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44721"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=44721"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=44721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}