The problem isn't really affording vaccines so much as being able to administer them. Africa is a big place; it is literally hard to get very cold mRNA vaccines to people even if we donate them.

Similarly, a lot of people have been claiming we're evilly withholding patents from the world, but that can't be a real issue or China and Russia would just have stolen the IP from us. They literally can't produce them any faster even with the rights.