President Cyril Ramaphosa was joined by French President Emmanuel Macron and World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a media briefing to announce how the facility would help to scale up production know-how in Africa’s worst-hit nation. The WHO has previously set up such hubs, which provide know-how and training to local manufacturers, to boost global production of influenza vaccines. During a visit to South Africa last month, Macron said he was pushing for faster transfer of technology to allow poorer countries to start manufacturing their own COVID-19 jabs. In Africa only about one percent of the population is fully vaccinated, according to WHO figures. South Africa, along with India, has been pushing for a temporary waiver of vaccines’ intellectual property rights in order to speed up production. South Africa accounts for over 35 percent of Africa’s total recorded COVID-19 cases, and is currently suffering a third wave of mass infections.
SOURCE: EYE WITNESS NEWS
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