Introduction: COVID-19 and the Law in Africa

In late February 2021, “all 47 countries [in the World Health Organization (WHO) African region] had reported a total of 2,789,965 confirmed cases and 71,204 deaths with case fatality rate of 2.6%”.1 With limited availability of vaccines and the spread of variants, the WHO concluded in April 2021 that “the risk associated with further spread of the SARS-CoV-2 VOCs in the African Region is currently assessed as high to very high for the overall population and very high for vulnerable individuals”.2 The COVID-19 pandemic and the responses to it have generated common challenges and tensions, particularly concerning the relationship between public health measures on the one hand and the need to protect human rights and secure livelihoods on the other. [...]the pandemic has deepened inequality in many African countries, pushing vulnerable and marginalized groups further into poverty.3 Across Africa, these challenges have played out in distinctive local, national and transnational settings in which developments have been shaped by underlying structural factors and situation-specific dynamics and responses. Exploring the challenges posed by the need to secure access to COVID-19 vaccines, including the need to integrate intellectual property rights with public health policies, he recommends the adoption of a government use provision under the Nigerian Patents and Designs Act. In an important finding on the impact of public health emergencies on political transitions, he argues that the outbreak of the pandemic during the transition simultaneously aggravated the impact of COVID-19 and slowed down, if not jeopardised, the implementation of the constitutional declaration and a series of legislative reform and justice measures.