COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing facility in the continent. Finally, Africa has realized that vaccines will not reach them on time to save lives and that they have to manufacture their own. Ramaphosa announced the new centre for Messenger RNA coronavirus vaccine technologies along with the World Health Organization (WHO) and French President Emmanuel Macron. However, due to the time it takes to build up the project, production of vaccines may be late until next year. The technology is set up on an industrial scale at tech transfer hubs, and interested enterprises can acquire training and necessary licenses to the technology.
The WHO, based in Geneva, considers the hub as a solution to address the massive disparities in vaccine access between the world’s richest and poorest countries. According to WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan, Covid-19 vaccine manufacture using tested and approved techniques by South Africa may take nine to twelve months.
The WHO and its joint forces use the tech transfer hub system to initiate production knowledge, quality control, and the requisite licenses to empower a speedy roll-out. In the South African vaccine market, Biovac biopharmaceutical company will be the developer and Afrigen biotechnology company will be the producer and a consortium of institutions will offer the scientific knowledge and expertise.
In order to accelerate vaccine production, South Africa and India have been advocating for a momentary relaxation of the vaccine’s intellectual property rights. According to an AFP data, over 2.6 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been already rolled out in around 216 countries throughout the world. In the first-world countries, which make up 16 percent of the world population, around 74 dosages per 100 people have been injected. In Africa, this proportion accounts for only three doses per 100 individuals.
