CAPE TOWN’S MRNA VACCINE TECH HUB IS OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED BY WHO

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, at lab scale and is now scaling up production.

The vaccine candidate, which must still be tested on people, is the first to be made based on a widely used vaccine without the assistance and approval of the developer. It is also the first mRNA vaccine designed, developed and produced at lab scale on the African continent.

WHO officially launches mRNA vaccine tech hub in Cape Town

Global pharmaceutical firms, including Moderna and Pfizer, had declined to provide the technical know-how to replicate their vaccines in Africa. pic.twitter.com/Ti7U5HP2jQ

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

After multinational pharmaceutical giants like as Moderna and Pfizer declined to contribute the technological know-how to replicate their vaccines, citing intellectual property issues, the hub chose to pursue the vaccine on its own.

The five-day visit by Tedros and senior health authorities will include conversations about the program’s sustainability, the science of mRNA technologies, and their potential use in combating other diseases that disproportionately impact poorer countries, such as HIV and tuberculosis.

As of March, the WHO reported that 70% of the global population had gotten at least one dose of a COVID vaccination, but that proportion was still less than 30% in low-income countries.