Cyril Ramaphosa and WHO’s Ghebreyesus discuss Africa’s role in fighting Covid-19

President Cyril Ramaphosa welcomed World Health Organisation (WHO) director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus to his official residence at Genadendal in Cape Town on Friday.

They met to discuss progress in making Africa self-sufficient in the production of Covid-19 vaccines and treatments.

The meeting followed a British Medical Journal (BMJ) investigation that found BioNTech, Pfizer’s partner on the main vaccine supplied in SA, allegedly tried to undermine those efforts by the WHO.

Ghebreyesus and the Belgian minister of development co-operation, Meryame Kitir, are on a two-day visit to vaccine-related sites around Cape Town.

Tedros met the president in his capacity as the AU Covid-19 champion and commended SA’s capability to improve vaccine equity at the global level, and to secure vaccines for Africa.

The visit focused specifically on the mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub and other vaccination initiatives, including the mRNA Hub at Afrigen, genomic sequencing at the Biomedical Research Institute and the fill-and-finish facility at Biovac.

A statement by the presidency said Ramaphosa welcomed that as “an opportunity to profile the depth of intellectual and technological capacity on the African continent, and the integrity with which intellectual property is being leveraged to enable vaccine production in Africa”.

The issue of integrity with intellectual property (IP) is crucial, as the damning report in the BMJ on BioNTech said the company tried to undermine the WHO effort by claiming that IP rights were being infringed.

According to the BMJ, which said it had confidential files in its possession, BioNTech was positioning itself for a windfall if shipping containers could come to Africa from Europe, exploit the regulations while in the area, then ship vaccines back to Europe.