The Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM) suggests that the African continent produce its own anti-covid vaccines. The idea is related to the need to end supply problems. However, the continent is still dealing with obstacles to stop being a pharmaceutical testing ground and create its own immunizers.

PAVM's goal is that 60% of the continent's routine vaccine needs, or between 1.4 and 1.7 billion doses annually, should be met by local manufacturing by 2040, up from about 1% currently.

The covid-19 pandemic had already provided enough signals for the need for Africa to produce its own vaccines, experts gathered Tuesday at a PAVM conference in Rwanda said. But the continent still deals with daunting obstacles, from brain drain to energy shortages.

According to the coordinator of the World Health Organization's Vaccine Research Initiative, Martin Friede, the continent had already produced many scientific researchers, but not a workforce capable of designing and manufacturing vaccines.

The official urged the continent's political and scientific leaders to focus on changing that skill set, contrasting Africa's usual role in the pharmaceutical sector.

"Right now, Africa is a test tube for many pharmaceutical companies. This is where we bring products to test them," he said.

Charles Gore, head of the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool that seeks to boost medicines production in developing countries, said that seeking licenses from pharmaceutical companies elsewhere was not a sustainable solution for Africa, as it had few incentives to offer those companies.

"Simply having development done in the developed world and transferring it all the time is not an answer to this," he considered.

Gore also warned against launching too many separate initiatives across the continent that would risk producing only "white elephants," urging instead that governments, companies and research centers collaborate to build complementary capabilities.

Speakers from major drug manufacturers and from bodies that provide funding stressed the high costs of research, development and production, urging African countries to pool demand in order to encourage investors with scale and long-term visibility.

"Higher volumes and consistent long-term contracting are key to making this work," said Patrick van der Loo, Pfizer's regional president for Africa and the Middle East.