DIARISE THE DATES: MSF hosts new webinar series on COVID-19 medical tools and local production in Africa

DIARISE THESE DATES FOR NEW WEBINAR SERIES: COVID-19 medical tools and local production in Africa

HOSTED BY:  Doctors Without Borders / MSF Southern Africa 

INTRODUCTION: Join Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Southern Africa for our three-part webinar series as we unpack three key topics: Intellectual property and therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostics. For the first discussion, we unpack intellectual property (IP) barriers to accessing life-saving COVID-19 medicines in Africa (20 October), the public health, local manufacturing and economic benefits of reforming South Africa's IP legislation and lessons learned from Brazil.   

Next up we will be exploring local vaccine production (03 November) and round off the series by unpacking diagnostics tools (16 November).  

MSF Access Campaign has recently brought out two strong briefing papers on increasing mRNA manufacturing in Africa and improving local production of diagnostics in low and middle-income countries. MSF has also published several press releases on ensuring an adequate supply of affordable COVID-19 therapeutics in low- and middle-income countries.

There is a need to delve into all the medical tools needed to overcome the pandemic. While the discourse on COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics has been somewhat neglected and largely overshadowed by vaccine access, there is also scope to drill further into vaccine manufacturing, notably with regards to mRNA technology.

These three-part webinar series aim to connect Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), academics, regional institutions and government to provide recommendations and the urgent action needed to boost local manufacturing.  

TOPICS AND DATES

PLEASE TAKE NOTE:

• An invite for the first webinar on Wednesday, 20^th of October 2021
• Panelists
• Registration details will follow soon