Akros joins Mastercard Foundation and Africa CDC’s Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative

By Akros Media on August 9, 2022 in COVID-19, Health Data Systems, News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August, 2022

We are thrilled to announce Akros Research has been awarded funding through Mastercard Foundation and Africa CDC’s Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative! The Mastercard Foundation is a Canadian foundation and one of the largest in the world with more than $40 billion in assets. The Foundation was created in 2006 through the generosity of Mastercard when it became a public company. Since its inception, the Foundation has operated independently of the company. The Foundation’s policies, operations, and program decisions are determined by its Board. Africa CDC is a specialized technical institution of the African Union that strengthens the capacity and capability of Africa’s public health institutions as well as partnerships to detect and respond quickly and effectively to disease threats and outbreaks, based on data-driven interventions and programs.

Saving Lives and Livelihoods is a partnership that enables the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines for at least 65 million people and supports the delivery to millions more across the continent. It will also lay the groundwork for vaccine manufacturing in Africa through a focus on human capital development, and strengthen Africa CDC. The partnership builds on the ongoing efforts of AVAT, COVAX, WHO, and local governments to provide access to vaccines to Africa and support the African Union’s goal of vaccinating 70 percent of Africa’s population by the end of 2022. This joint initiative will focus on four key areas:

• Pillar 1—Purchase at least 50M COVID-19 vaccine doses
• Pillar 2—Support deployment of COVID-19 vaccine doses
• Pillar 3—Strengthen vaccine manufacturing of human vaccines
• Pillar 4—Strengthen Africa CDC’s capacity and capabilities

Akros Research has joined the initiative to support Pillar 2 through COVID-19 vaccine safety surveillance strengthening in Eastern and Southern Africa. Functionally, this means that Akros Research will be:

• Developing a real-time AEFI and AESI regional reporting framework and platform in each region;
• Strengthening country-level capacity for identification and reporting of AEFI/AESI in select focus countries; and
• Strengthening regional pharmacovigilance and safety surveillance networks of excellence.

Pharmacovigilance is a critical component of robust health systems and is especially important to the health and safety of citizens. Safety surveillance platforms serve as an early warning system to detect possible safety problems with medications, vaccines, or medical devices. Each report of an adverse event provides valuable information. Accurate, complete, and timely reporting of these health issues provides important information for medication and vaccine safety monitoring and research. Akros Research is looking forward to supporting this critical component of the Saving Lives and Livelihoods project over the next three years, and has already begun to hit the ground running by engaging member states to identify technical assistance requirements through micro planning sessions organization by the Africa CDC.