South Africa is working to save Africa’s only Covid-19 vaccine plant in the Eastern Cape provincial town of Gqeberha from closure due to lack of orders, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday.
Some Aspen executives said Africa’s first and only Covid-19 vaccine plant risked shutting down after failing to receive a single order since its inauguration last year.
The sales and orders never materialised after a number of Western countries donated vaccines, they said.
Ramaphosa said he was working with his counterparts from Zambia, Uganda, Malawi, Kenya, Rwanda, Egypt, and Ghana to save Aspen Pharmacare from premature closure.
“We are working on that issue of Aspen. We’re very, very concerned – and it has to do with the global network that buys vaccines,” he said.
He said the lack of orders was not “just be affecting us and Aspen but it’ll affect all the other countries that are aspiring into vaccine manufacturing.”
“It’s a cause for concern that vaccines are not being procured. We will also be engaging with the rest of the world to procure vaccines made in Africa,” Ramaphosa said.
In response, his African counterparts are making plans to ensure that vaccines used in Africa are bought from companies that make vaccines in Africa, he added.
NM/jn/APA