How a community-led understanding of access and uptake barriers and enablers informs better vaccination programs

Interventions to increase timely and equitable access to life-saving diagnostics and medicines for Africa must address the root causes of inequality and prioritise meeting communities at their point of need. Current donor funding for vaccination initiatives and voluntary licensing largely remains at the discretion of those in the global north, curtailing the agency of African countries, their pandemic preparedness, and the need for decolonisation of research and development, i.e., free. Read more.

From Ports2Arms: Reimagining demand creation for the African context

The advent of the COVID-19 vaccine was seen as a silver bullet to end the pandemic by many, yet from the outset, African countries faced significant barriers to its effective distribution, access, and uptake. This was compounded by vaccine hoarding and nationalism by global north governments, making procurement difficult. Attempts to “equalise supply access” through global mechanisms like COVAX. Read more.