• Vaccines are not manufactured in Africa although the disease burden is in Africa.
• Countries holding the patent rights should make sure that African countries can manufacture vaccines.
• Zambia has vaccinated 21,919 people against COVID-19 in less than 2 weeks.

Government says there is need to waive patent rights in order to allow local manufacturing of drugs and vaccines in countries bearing the burden of various infectious diseases.
Speaking when he addressed the Eighth edition of the Merck Foundation Africa Asia Luminary Virtual conference today, Dr. Chanda further called for local manufacturing of medical drugs.
Dr. Chanda said Government supports views by the World Trade Organization that patent rights for vaccines and medicines should be waived to allow for countries to start manufacturing medicines and vaccines to make them affordable and readily available.
He however expressed happiness that the malaria vaccine is also on sight and has shown efficacy of 77 percent.
Dr. Chanda has since urged Companies holding patent rights to ensure that African countries can manufacture vaccines for diseases such as malaria, COVID-19, essential antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs.
“Vaccines are not manufactured in Africa although the disease burden is in Africa whether you talk about Covid-19, infectious diseases, we have Malaria which has been with us for many years.”
“We therefore appeal that those countries holding the patent rights, should do something very humanitarian by making sure that African countries can manufacture these vaccines for Malaria, Covid-19, essential antibiotics and also chemotherapy drugs,” Dr. Chanda said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Chanda disclosed that Zambia has vaccinated a cumulative 21,919 people against COVID-19 in less than 2 weeks since the vaccine program was launched.
He said as of yesterday 4,068 people received the vaccine countrywide, adding that of the vaccinated, 7,303 are frontline healthcare workers.
He further revealed that the country has in the last 24 hours recorded 66 new cases, zero deaths and 26, while 44 people are currently admitted to isolation centers countrywide.
“We have 44 patients admitted to our COVID-19 isolation facilities nationally. Among them, 33 (75%) are on Oxygen therapy and 8 (18%) are critically ill. We report Twenty-six (26) discharges from both the COVID-19 isolation facilities and home management, bringing the cumulative number of recoveries to 89,743 (98%).”
“On a good note, we did not record any COVID-19 related death in the last 24 hours. The cumulative number of COVID-19 related deaths recorded to-date stands at 1,249, classified as 702 COVID deaths and 547 COVID-19 associated deaths,” he disclosed.