The AVPA initiative focuses on identifying the key challenges and opportunities for vaccine production and innovation in Africa. It has two specific goals: to identify technology gaps in the vaccine sector in Africa, both in public research and private sector companies, and to build the vaccine innovation ecosystem in Africa by strengthening its public sector institutions. The initiative fosters a centres of excellence network to support the emergence of manufacturing capacity in the region built on robust university-industry collaborations, and a strong African public sector that focuses on translational research for vaccines.
The centres of excellence network is built on strong collaborative effort between different institutions spread across Africa that act as nodes of learning and interaction. Various research, training and policy engagement activities of the AVPA centres of excellence network bring together private, public, and academic sectors to build a strong vaccine ecosystem in the region that trains talent and increases returns on innovation investments in Africa in this sector.
Building manufacturing capabilities is not just about creating science capacity. New discoveries in basic and applied research need to be learnt and applied in a vaccine ecosystem. Natural science capabilities need to be built together with other social science capabilities that promote a better understanding of the vaccine innovation and production systems. They also help measure the extent of capacity that exists, identify technology gaps and critical tipping points. A number of open questions arise when building a vaccine ecosystem in an entirely new region. What can such a vaccine ecosystem look like? How do we assess existing capacity both in the public and private sectors? What forms of competencies are missing? What are the critical issues we need to consider, in terms of policy and regulation? In our research and capacity building activities, we bring together both natural and social science scholars to respond to these questions.
A one stop snapshot of all current and planned initiatives in Africa, with details on product portfolios.