Pharmaceutical giant Moderna on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding with Kenya to build its first mRNA vaccine facility in the East African nation, reported Reuters. As part of the deal, the company will invest $500 million to build the vaccine manufacturing facility.
In a statement, Moderna said its goal is to produce up to 500 million doses of vaccines a year for the continent, with a focus on drug substance manufacturing and the potential to expand to include fill-and-finish work.
“In parallel, Moderna is also working on plans to allow it to fill doses of its COVID-19 vaccine in Africa as early as 2023, subject to demand,” the pharmaceutical company said.
Moderna reached an agreement with the Kenyan government with the support of the U.S. government. The drug-making company’s mRNA pipeline includes 28 vaccine programs including vaccines against respiratory viruses, vaccines against latent viruses, and vaccines against threats to global public health. Its COVID vaccine has been cleared for use in over 70 countries.
Africa is currently the least-vaccinated region in the world against the coronavirus. The continent relies on imports for about 99 percent of its vaccine needs, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Only 11% of the continent’s people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 so far.
The leaders of various African countries, who find themselves at the back of the vaccine queue, have now decided to come together to pursue the goal of bringing more vaccine manufacturing to the continent of 1.3 billion people.
In October, Senegal and Rwanda signed an agreement with pharmaceutical company BioNTech for the construction of its first start-to-finish factories to make mRNA vaccines in Africa.
Last month, the WHO announced the first six countries that will receive the technology needed to produce mRNA vaccines on the African continent. Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia have been selected as recipients.
