Canada announces support for vaccine manufacturing in Africa
News release
June 20, 2024 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
Today, the Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of International Development, announced the allocation of $85 million in funding to the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA), a new initiative aimed at enhancing health security and equitable access to vaccines across Africa. This contribution highlights Canada’s ongoing commitment to addressing barriers to equitable vaccine access and to learning from the COVID-19 pandemic by increasing support for regional manufacturing initiatives in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Despite having roughly 20% of the world’s population, Africa accounts for less than 0.1% of the world’s vaccine production.
AVMA will provide financial incentives to help vaccine manufacturers in Africa build and increase production capacity and make production sustainable. It is designed to improve the region’s resilience to pre-existing, new, and emerging pandemics, outbreaks, or other health emergencies. By 2035, AVMA aims to incentivize the production of over 800 million vaccine doses.
Spearheaded by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in partnership with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, AVMA is a strategic priority for the G7 and our partners on the African continent to strengthen healthcare supply chains.
Minister Hussen made the announcement in the context of an official launch event held in Paris for the AVMA and Gavi’s investment opportunity for 2026–2030, co-hosted by the Government of France, the African Union and Gavi. Canada’s investment in AVMA will be pooled with other donors to support AVMA’s objective of making up to US$1 billion available to manufacturers in Africa.
Quotes
“The pandemic showed us how crucial it is that we work together to deliver more timely and equitable access to vaccines. These are lessons we must carry forward. The African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator is a direct and important response to the need to produce vaccines closer to the people that need them.”
- Ahmed Hussen, Minister of International Development
Quick facts
-
Today’s announcement builds on Canada’s leading role in the COVID-19 pandemic response and its support for equitable access to vaccines. It also complements ongoing Canadian investments in the Medicines Patent Pool and the World Health Organization’s mRNA Vaccine Technology Transfer Hub, in South Africa, which support a network of manufacturing facilities in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Canada is also working with the Pan American Health Organization to help ensure countries in the Americas have strong rules about producing vaccines and systems to produce them.
-
Since 2000, Canada has provided $1.6 billion in funding to support Gavi’s core work, with a focus on reaching children with life-saving routine immunizations, delivering vaccines during acute disease outbreaks and investing in and rolling out new vaccines and immunization programs, including against malaria and human papillomavirus. In 2023, Gavi reached the milestone of immunizing 1 billion children worldwide and preventing more than 17 million deaths through essential childhood vaccines. Gavi’s efforts have helped to strengthen country health systems and unlock more than US $220.5 billion in economic benefits for countries.
-
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gavi led the establishment of the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) Facility to enable equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for LMICs. Canada was a leading donor to COVAX, contributing $840 million and donating the equivalent of over 201 million doses by the end of 2022. COVAX successfully delivered nearly 2 billion vaccines to 146 countries. Canada’s funding of AVMA is a strategic allocation from COVAX, in line with Canada’s G7 pandemic response and recovery commitments.
Associated links
Contacts
Olivia Batten
Press Secretary
Office of the Minister of International Development
Olivia.Batten@international.gc.ca
Media Relations Office
Global Affairs Canada
media@international.gc.ca
Follow us on X (Twitter): @CanadaDev
Like us on Facebook: Canada’s international development - Global Affairs Canada
Follow us on Instagram: @canadadev
Page details
- Date modified: