Africa faces many health challenges, exacerbated by the global pandemic of COVID-19 and recurring epidemics. Excessive dependence on imports of medicines, vaccines and medical equipment, strongly criticized, underlines the need for greater autonomy in health care. This paradox is especially stark given that Africa bears a heavier burden of disease while most medicine and vaccine production remains concentrated in Northern countries.

According to the WHO, Africa currently imports over 70% of its medicines and over 99% of its vaccines. This extreme dependence exposes the continent to critical supply disruptions, as demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic, during which African countries were the last to receive vaccines. Furthermore, while Africa bears 24% of the global burden of disease, it has just 3% of the world’s healthcare professionals.

Other contributing factors include:

(i) a lack of qualified human resources and their uneven distribution,
(ii) insufficient funding, limiting infrastructure development and innovation, and
(iii) inadequate preparedness and response capabilities of health systems in facing major health crises.

However, several African initiatives are making encouraging progress towards health sovereignty:

(i) Institute Pasteur in Dakar is currently developing the Madiba project, an mRNA vaccine production unit designed to strengthen the continent’s vaccine autonomy;
(ii) In South Africa, Aspen Pharmacare produces Johnson & Johnson vaccines;
(iii) while the African Union’s African Medicines Agency (AMA) is working to harmonize regulatory frameworks and stimulate local production. These advances show that a transformation of the African healthcare system is underway, but requires greater commitment from governments, the private sector and partners. Faced with these structural challenges, health sovereignty has become a strategic imperative.

In this context, the Galien Forum Africa provides a platform for high-level scientific exchanges to address issues of common interest, on the health priorities of our continent. It is a unique opportunity to share lessons learned in efforts to establish health sovereignty, identify persistent challenges and explore future prospects

The Galien forum Africa aims to contribute to the development of the continent’s health sovereignty, by promoting awareness, the development of resilient and sustainable health systems, and above all capacity building for States Parties and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in research and development, production, and the regulation of medical products, in order to facilitate the availability of and access to safe, effective, quality medical products on the continent.