The WHO is putting in place a hub in South Africa to give companies from poor and middle-income countries the know-how and licenses to produce COVID-19 vaccines.
Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African leader, spearheading the fight for the temporary lifting of intellectual property on anti-Covid vaccines and slayer of vaccine inequality, had this terrible sentence on Monday to justify the creation of a regional production capacity: “We can see that we cannot count on vaccines that are manufactured outside Africa because they never come. They never arrive on time and people keep dying ”. He was speaking from South Africa at a World Health Organization press briefing in Geneva on the project. Cyril Ramaphosa called an historic step to spread lifesaving technology. The “tech transfer hub” could make it possible for African companies to begin manufacturing mRNA vaccines – the advanced technology now used in shots from Pfizer and Moderna – in as little as 9-12 months, the World Health Organization said.
It announced two companies, Afrigen Biologics and Biovac had signed up so far, and said it was in talks with Pfizer and Moderna about participating.
The WHO has long been calling for rich countries to share vaccine technology. The initiative to help African countries produce vaccines is especially urgent at a time when cases and deaths on the continent have increased by almost 40% over the past week.
In a statement, the WHO described the hub as a training facility, “where the technology is established at industrial scale and clinical development performed. Interested manufacturers from low- and middle-income countries can receive training and any necessary licenses to the technology.”
