Africa’s Frenzied Race to Produce Large-Scale Vaccines | future planet

Five African countries, Morocco, Rwanda, South Africa, Senegal and Kenya, have been plunged since last year in the a frantic race to be the first to produce large-scale vaccines in Africa. The continent’s dependence on this material is enormous, producing only 1% of the doses it uses. However, it was the covid-19 pandemic and the lack of solidarity from rich countries, which at first monopolized them all, that prompted the African Union (AU) to prioritize projects to build factories with the target of covering 60% of demand in 2040. More than 30 initiatives emerged in the last year, but the five mentioned are the most solid and should be operational in 2023. It is important to finish first.

2021 has been a tough reality check for Africa. As covid-19 vaccinations spread around the world, the continent barely reached the crumbs. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), sounded the alarm: “You cannot guarantee the health safety of your people by importing 99% of your vaccines”. It wasn’t just a pandemic issue. Immediately afterwards, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), indicated the way forward: “The best way to fight inequalities is to put the tools in the hands of those who need them most”. The AU, with the support of the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), has accepted the challenge and announced its vision for 2040, proposing to member countries to start initiatives for the construction of factories that allow them to achieve sovereignty over vaccines.

In the next two years, at least these five projects will be operational, but the challenge is the market. “Demand in Africa is enormous and is increasing due to population growth, but for 25 years it has been covered by Gavi, Unicef ​​​​and other organizations, which buy for Africa. The question is whether, once this support is removed, the African countries themselves will be able to pay for their doses,” says an expert from the Pasteur Institute, “with the emergence of new producers, Gavi will redistribute market shares. There will be resistance from the large multinationals, which amortize their cost structures by selling to Africa at low prices, but in the end there will be a market for everyone,” he adds.

At first the idea was to produce vaccines against covid-19, but it is much more. The field of routine pediatric immunization is a priority, as well as for endemic diseases that have a huge impact in Africa, such as malaria, which it was the first vaccine of its kind recommended by WHO in 2021, having passed the pilot phase in three countries on the continent. Even those of yellow fever or Ebola, with a variant approved for the Zaire strain and under investigation for the Sudanese strain. African plants are expected to have the technology to manufacture next-generation products widely distributed during the recent pandemic, such as messenger RNA.

On January 27, the king of Morocco, Mohamed VI, laid the foundation stone of Sensyo Pharmatech, the first industrial production plant in the North African country. Located in Benslimane, in the Casablanca region, the idea is that in a first phase it could deal with the bottling of doses from imported bottles, known as fill and finish, but this is already happening in various African countries and does not contribute to reducing dependence, since the raw material continues to come from abroad. With a total cost of 200 million euros, the second phase aims to fully produce around 600 million doses per year, turning Morocco into a center region in this regard.

Last June it was Rwanda which launched its project with the start of construction of a plant of the German company BioNTech in Kigali, the country’s capital. With the strong support of the European Union and Germany itself, the initiative aims to produce vaccines against covid-19 using messenger RNA technology, but also pioneering immunizations currently under development against malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis, epidemic diseases in the continent. One of the most important characteristics of the projects that are at the forefront of this particular race, with the exception of the case of Kenya, is that they are all public-private initiatives with the support of international organizations.

In Senegal, the government played a crucial role in promoting the initiative: it made available the three hectares needed in Diamnadio, about 40 kilometers from Dakar, disbursed over 15 million euros and gave strong political support. With work also quite advanced and a cost of around 220 million euros, the project called MADIBA (Manufacturing in Africa for Immunization against Diseases and the Construction of Autonomy, for its acronym in English) will be under the responsibility of the Pasteur Institute of Dakar. 75% of its financing was granted thanks to the involvement of the European Investment Bank, the United States, the World Bank or the German and French cooperation agencies, among others. The goal: no fewer than 300 million doses a year.

Even with the strong support of the European Union, South Africa aspires to have an autonomous production plant in the coming months developed by the Biovac company. With proven capacity and solvency during the covid-19 pandemic, when it put its vial bottling machines into operation, the southern country is one of the best positioned in terms of scientific quality and real investment opportunities. Located in Cape Town, the South African project has a cost of over 175 million euros and aims to reach 500 million doses per year.

A fifth country, Kenya, has also made great strides with its project, but unlike the previous four initiatives, in this case it is an exclusively private investment developed by Moderna, which aims to reach 500 million doses with an investment of around 400 million euros. Paradoxically, the large pharmaceutical multinationals that have produced most of the vaccines to date have been left out of the African cake because they have not been flexible enough to respond to the covid-19 crisis and it is the biotech companies that have filled their place with much more innovative tools.

When the five plants are operational, at least 30% of Africa’s vaccine demand will be covered within five years, according to estimates. Then it will be easier to replicate the model in other countries. Another challenge will be specialization, so that each project can produce a different type of immunization and there is collaboration between them. Dozens of African scientists and specialized personnel from the diaspora have shown interest in returning because there will be a need for talent, which is also a challenge for all projects. For now, the race continues because the first to finish the factories will occupy the best positions in the new scenario.

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