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The Director-General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Dr Jean Kaseya, has blamed limited international interest in Africa’s health challenges for the absence of an approved vaccine against the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola.
Kaseya argued that vaccine development might have progressed faster if the current outbreak were affecting Western countries, accusing some international partners of treating the disease as an exclusively African problem.
“If this outbreak was in Western countries, vaccine would already be available,” he said during an interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Thursday.
The Africa CDC chief said the Bundibugyo strain had attracted less attention partly because it had caused fewer outbreaks than the Zaire strain, which has been responsible for more than 16 outbreaks.
“Why is this vaccine not available? Because some of our partners, they decided to consider this issue as an African issue, they were not interested,” Kaseya said.
He disclosed that the Africa CDC had taken steps to address the gap by supporting clinical trials of potential vaccines, including a candidate being developed by an African manufacturer in Egypt specifically for the Bundibugyo strain.
The agency is also working with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda to make Ervebo, a vaccine developed against the Zaire strain, available for clinical trials and compassionate use.
Kaseya said the efforts were part of a broader push to strengthen Africa’s capacity to develop and manufacture vaccines, medicines and diagnostic tools rather than depend heavily on external partners during public health emergencies.
“We don’t want to see again Africa left behind. We have the knowledge, we have people with intelligence, we have capacity to manufacture vaccine. We need to move on,” he said.
He urged African governments and international partners to sustain investment in vaccine research, improve coordination and increase domestic funding for disease prevention and response.
The Africa CDC chief also disclosed that 28 African countries had contributed funds towards the response to the current outbreak, describing the support as a significant step towards greater continental responsibility for public health emergencies.
“This is the first time I saw 28 African countries coming to provide funding to support the response, more than 50 per cent of African countries,” he said.
He added: “After Ebola, Bundibugyo will not be like before Bundibugyo.”
Nigeria confirmed its first imported case of Bundibugyo Ebola in the Federal Capital Territory on October 20.
The patient, a woman who had recently travelled from Uganda, was receiving medical care, while health authorities had identified 44 contacts for monitoring.
