South Africa is among six African countries selected as the first recipients of technology from the World Health Organisation (WHO) ‘s global mRNA vaccine hub to produce drugs for the Covid-19 disease, the UN agency announced on Friday.
In a push to ensure Africa can manufacture its own jabs to fight the Covid-19 pandemic and other deadly diseases, the WHO also chose Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia as the beneficiaries of this mRNA technology.
The countries have been chosen to establish their own mRNA vaccine production plants following the recent development of the pandemic when the continent was largely denied access to adequate Covid-19 drugs, the UN agency said.
“No other event like the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that reliance on a few companies to supply global public goods is limiting – and dangerous,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
He added: “The best way to address health emergencies and reach universal health coverage is to significantly increase the capacity of all regions to manufacture the health products they need.”
The WHO chief has continually called for equitable access to vaccines in order to beat the pandemic, and has railed against the way wealthy nations have hogged doses, leaving Africa lagging behind other continents in the global vaccination effort.
A ceremony marking the mRNA tech transfer announcement is to be held on Friday in the Belgian city of Brussels where European Union and the African Union leaders are having a summit.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said: “We have been talking a lot about producing mRNA vaccines in Africa. But this goes even beyond. This is mRNA technology designed in Africa, led by Africa and owned by Africa.”
Currently only one percent of the vaccines used in Africa are produced on the continent of some 1.3 billion people.
NM/jn/APA