The France has just allocated 25 million euros to Senegal: important financing for the pharmaceutical industry
It aims to increase Africa’s medical and vaccine production capacity and thus reduce its dependence on the outside.
This mechanism, supported by the Government of Senegal and international financial partners, is hosted by the Institut Pasteur de Dakar (IPD), which houses a regional production hub.
Africamaril, another IPD project, manufactures yellow fever vaccines in Diamniadio, the new city on the outskirts of Dakar.
The France has just allocated 25 million euros, or 16.4 billion CFA francs, in the form of a loan, to the Support Program for the Recovery of the Pharmaceutical Industry.
The agreement, which will mainly be used to finance the Madiba project, a major pillar of the pharmaceutical industry’s recovery strategy, was signed Thursday evening by the Minister of Economy, Planning and Cooperation, Amadou Hott, and the Ambassador of France to Senegal, Philippe Lalliot.
The need for autonomy in the local manufacture of vaccines, medicines and health technologies is one of the main lessons learned from the pandemic, Hott said, recalling in passing that “Africa currently imports 99% of its vaccines”.
Amadou Hott welcomed the fact that with this ambitious program, Senegal will be one of the countries that will have to serve as a hub in the production of vaccines in Africa.
At the end of this programme, the Government aims to restructure the pharmaceutical sector by focusing on a strengthened regulatory framework and pharmaceutical regulatory institutions to ensure the opening of capital to non-professional private individuals while ensuring the quality, safety and efficacy of available health products.
A dynamic of setting up a human resources training system allowing in the long term the establishment and sustainability of a local pharmaceutical industry and a vaccine sovereignty ensured by the establishment of vaccine production capacities, through the various projects of the Institut Pasteur in Dakar, in particular Madiba and Africamaril are also expected.
Finally, an investment environment favourable to the development of industrial projects so that the pharmaceutical sector can be a sector producing economic value and jobs will also be put in place.
Madiba is a project to build a plant in Senegal to produce vaccines against Covid-19 and other endemic diseases.
