Six African Countries to Kick Off mRNA Vaccines Production

THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

(WHO) has announced the fi rst six countries that will receive the technology needed to produce mRNA vaccines in Africa, in the latest eff ort to boost production on the continent.

WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

said on Friday that Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia have been selected to ramp up jabs production on the continent.

“No other event like the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that reliance on a few companies to supply global public goods is limiting, and dangerous,” said Tedros during a ceremony hosted by the European Council, France, South Africa and the WHO.

“In the mid-to-long term, the best way to address health emergencies and reach universal health coverage is to signifi cantly increase the

capacity of all regions to manufacture the

health products they need, with equitable access as their primary endpoint,” he added.

Established in 2021, the global mRNA technology transfer hub was set up to ensure that low- and middle-income countries had all the operating procedures and know-how to produce their own jabs at scale and according to international standards.

As used in the Pfi zer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, mRNA technology provokes an immune response by delivering genetic molecules containing the code for key parts of a pathogen into human cells.

The announcement came as Africa, home to some 1.3 billion people, has been struggling to get

Aljazeera

enough vaccines while wealthier nations received most of the world’s supplies. Currently, 17% of the African population has received at least one dose – a fi gure that rises to 75 and 76% in the European Union and the United States respectively, according to Our World in Data.

The hub’s set-up is important considering that Pfi zer, BioNTech and Moderna – the main producer of mRNA vaccines – all declined a WHO request to share their technology and expertise. Currently, only 1% of the vaccines used in Africa are produced on the continent.

“This is mRNA technology designed in Africa,

led by Africa and owned by Africa,” said EU’s chief Ursula von der Leyen during the ceremony. “A perfect example of what we can achieve when we pool together,” she added on Twitter.

The WHO said it would work with the fi rst six countries chosen to develop a roadmap

of training and support so they can start

producing vaccines as soon as possible. Training will begin in March.

The South African hub is already producing mRNA vaccines at laboratory scale and is currently scaling up towards a commercial scale.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa

said: “This is an initiative that will allow us to make our own vaccines and that, to us, is very important. It means mutual respect, mutual recognition of what we can all bring to the party, investment in our economies, infrastructure investment and, in many ways, giving back to the continent.” www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/six-africancountries-to-kick-off -mrna-vaccines-production/ ar-AAU22tm Image credit: devdiscourse.com