1.🚁 Heli view: This is how pharma supply chains will melt in Africa

Cyclone Idai disrupted the drug supply of more than 185,000 Zimbabweans living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in 2019. 

• Roads were flooded and bridges destroyed. Almost a fifth of the clinics where patients receive vital antiretroviral therapy were unreachable in affected areas. 

Why this matters – to everyone: It shows the continent needs a pharma response to climate change as much as it needs an energy transition. 

• But so far, few solutions are available. 

Where to focus: The challenge for the drugs sector is threefold: 

• Changes in the natural world threaten the sourcing of pharma ingredients.

• Climate change drives the spread of diseases and undermines food security. 

• Distribution of drugs in cold chains by road and in clinics is made harder.

First challenge: Climate change impacts drug ingredients from plants and animals. Temperature and precipitation changes may lower the potency and yield. 

• Medicinal ingredients, such as the fever tree – a source of quinine used in antimalarial drugs – are undermined by the growing loss of African forests.  

• Climate-related habitat loss endangers black mamba populations, whose venom includes three-finger toxins that could act as powerful new painkillers rivalling morphine. 

• Omega-3 fatty acids (to combat heart disease, improve brain function, reduce inflammation) are threatened by marine heat waves – which have increased by more than half in the past 30 years, threatening fish stocks rich in Omega-3.

Second challenge: Illness is taking new paths in Africa. Changing weather patterns create new breeding grounds for disease-carrying insects and allow existing maladies to reach new regions. 

• Countless studies show that malaria and dengue fever rise in line with temperatures. 

• More than a million Africans now die every year prematurely from air pollution. 

• Ever increasing floods in Lagos cause 50% of the hospitalisations due to water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid. 

Food insecurity: Missing pharma and fertiliser solutions are evident from growing malnutrition and weakened immune systems due to climate-related droughts and harvest failures. 

• At least 45 million children are at risk of poor health and malnutrition in eastern and southern Africa due to the climate crisis. 

• More than 3 million livestock died in Somalia in a single year from prolonged drought, exacerbating food insecurity and contributing to malnutrition.  

Third challenge: Perhaps nowhere is the climate impact on medicine more obvious than in distribution. High temperatures require more refrigeration in supply chains and dispensaries. 

• Cold chain infrastructure is underdeveloped on the continent, already leading to over 40% in loss of produce between harvesting and consumption. 

• Sub-Saharan regions require more than 250 additional Cooling Degrees Days (CDD), a measure of the efforts needed. 

Natural disasters: On top of rising temperatures, extreme weather events such as floods and hurricanes will also disrupt pharma supply chains. Damaged infrastructure and disrupted transport networks hinder the delivery of raw materials as well as finished drugs.

• Long stretches of roads and rail lines in Tanzania are exposed to extreme flooding. 

• Climate-related supply chain issues contribute to $35 billion in annual losses experienced already by the global drug industry 

Hospitals hit: Just as supply chains are increasingly impacted by climate disasters, so will be dispensaries. Especially clinics in areas with already limited resources face disruption. 

• Cyclone Freddy destroyed more than 300 health facilities in southern Africa.

• Storm Daniel flooded multiple hospitals in the Libyan city of Derna in addition to killing thousands of inhabitants, hindering the treatment of survivours. 

Solutions needed: Pharma revenue is rising in Africa (see chart above). But limited thinking has so far gone into solving climate-related challenges. Here are the most obvious steps:

• Find alternative sources or synthetic substitutes for endangered ingredients.

• Develop treatments for the changing spread of diseases and malnutrition.

• Upgrade cold chains to refrigerate drugs in the face of rising temperatures.

2. Cheat sheet: Four ways to make pharma sustainable 

Drugs can be life-saving but extra care is needed:

(i) Production: Medical manufacturing facilities often rely on fossil fuels for energy. 

(ii) Transport: Getting medicines physically to market can contribute to emissions. 

(iii) Waste: Many byproducts of drug manufacture are classified as hazardous. Improper disposal of chemical waste can contaminate ecosystems. 

(iv) Water: The industry is a major consumer of water in the production process. Avoiding shortages is a growing challenge in some places. 

3. Number of the week 

… is the total value of the green ammonia deals signed by Egypt’s sovereign wealth fund with European developers. These agreements include an $11 billion project with DAI Infrastruktur in East Port Said and a $14 billion plant in Ain Sukhna Port, in collaboration with BP, Masdar, Hassan Allam Utilities and Infinity Power.

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4. Network corner

👉 VWSA wins an award for waste management

👉 Africa50 and IRENA partner on renewable energy

5. Media monitoring

• Ground-breaking: SolarAfrica Energy has begun construction on the first phase of its 1 GW SunCentral solar park in South Africa's Northern Cape, costing $270 million. The project includes the utility Eskom and is part of a government programme to increase renewable energy.

• Funding: BFA Global, FSD Africa and IUCN have selected ten African startups to receive $55,000 each to develop solutions for the blue and green economy. The startups from Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Tanzania address issues such as pollution, renewable energy and waste management.

• Mobility: Saglev, an American electric vehicle manufacturer, has begun assembling EVs at its plant in Ikorodu, Lagos. The vehicles can cover 300km on a single charge, which takes around four hours.

• Waste management: Nigeria will ban single-use plastics by 2025, following a policy adopted in 2020. Government offices have already ceased using plastics as of June 25 to prepare for the nationwide ban. Currently, less than 12% of plastic waste is recycled in Nigeria, with water sachets being a significant source of plastic waste.

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