South Africa's vaccine production potential: towards an intra-BRICS vaccine production framework

Good health is indispensable in the pursuit of human, social and economic development and growth. To this end, reducing illness and mortality from treatable disease is an important undertaking of the process of economic growth and development. The challenge of good health for the majority of citizens is most pronounced in Africa and Asia. These regions experience numerous mortalities from medical conditions that are not always fatal in industrialised economies. For instance, preventable diseases such as diarrhoea and bacterial pneumonia (Streptococcus Pneumoniae) infection which are common in children under the age of five, kill about 525,000 under 5 children annually, in Africa and Asia (World Health Organization, 2017). Vaccines can prevent many such deaths. Evidence from South Africa shows that vaccination accounts for a significant level of the reduced infant mortality and hospitalisation cases linked to pneumonia. For instance, the use of pneumonia-targeted vaccine decreased hospitalisation of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected children by almost 40%, and by 33% for children who were not infected (Izu et al., 2017). Such impacts of vaccine on mortality rate make it imperative to ensure that vaccines are readily available and accessible to protect both the current and future human capital of the developing countries as it does in the developed ones.