African countries need to unanimously agree on a central regulatory body for their pharmaceutical and medical products before the continent can set up functional manufacturing plants.
At the second Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (AfricaCDC) stakeholders meeting on vaccine manufacturing held last week, global pharmaceutical players outlined challenges they face in finding local manufacturing partners for transfer of vaccine technical know-how. Key among them was the lack of a central regulatory body to streamline and expedite approval processes. Also lacking are high-performing national regulatory authorities to govern local vaccine manufacturing.
