As the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic crashes across Africa, the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the intellectual property from any effective vaccine should be made available for local manufacturing and swifter distribution.
John Nkengasong also told reporters that Africa’s 1.3 billion people have “all kinds of differences in genetic makeup, so we want to be sure that we are participating fully” in vaccine trials.
Africa has had more than 644,000 confirmed virus cases, nearly half in South Africa alone.
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