Can a global treaty end the vaccine inequity that plagued Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic?
A quarter of the global population remains unvaccinated for COVID-19, five years after the virus emerged.
During the pandemic, African countries were among the last to receive life-saving medicines because powerful nations control vaccine stockpiles.
This “vaccine apartheid” fuels distrust in expensive Western-made vaccines.
Senegal and other African nations will produce more of their own vaccines to protect the disease-prone continent.
A pandemic treaty being negotiated at the World Health Organization could also help Global South nations better prepare for outbreaks.
Episode 1 of Flatten the Curve, a new series on pandemic preparedness, explores the fight to end vaccine inequity.
