WHO officially launches mRNA vaccine technology hub in Cape Town

Global pharmaceutical companies, including Moderna and Pfizer, have refused to provide the technical know-how to replicate their vaccines in Africa.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially launched its mRNA vaccine technology center in Cape Town, a facility established during the COVID-19 pandemic to help the poorest countries struggling to access life-saving medicines. .

In 2021, the WHO selected the South African biotech company Afrigen Biologics for a pilot project to provide poor and middle-income countries with the knowledge and licenses to manufacture COVID vaccines. At the time, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called it a historic step.

Afrigen Biologics has used the publicly available sequence of Moderna Inc’s mRNA COVID vaccine to make its own version of the shot, AfriVac 2121, on a lab scale and is now ramping up production.

The vaccine candidate, which has yet to be tested in people, is the first to be made based on a widely used vaccine without developer assistance and approval. It is also the first mRNA vaccine designed, developed and produced on a laboratory scale on the African continent.

“I am… here in Cape Town with our partners to support a sustainable model for mRNA technology transfer to provide low- and middle-income countries equitable access to vaccines and other life-saving health products,” he said. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement. on Thursday, the day the vaccine center launched.

The center decided to pursue the vaccine on its own after global pharmaceutical companies, including Moderna and Pfizer, refused to provide the know-how to replicate their vaccines, mainly over intellectual property concerns.

The five-day visit by Tedros and senior health officials will include discussions on the sustainability of the program, the science of mRNA technologies, and their potential use to combat other diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis that disproportionately affect the most poor.

The WHO said 70 percent of the world’s population had received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine as of March, but that number was still below 30 percent in low-income countries.