South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday launched a new vaccine manufacturing facility that he claims will help in boosting the country’s capacity to make its own vaccines for various diseases including COVID-19, reported Reuters.
The factory was also launched by Patrick Soon-Shiong, the South African-born founder of NantWorks, a United States-based multinational biotechnology firm that has invested about $200 million to start the facility.
Speaking at the official launch of the Nant-SA Vaccine Manufacturing Campus in Cape town, Ramaphosa said Africa should no longer be the last in line to access vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the new vaccine manufacturing plant was part of a far broader initiative to propel Africa into a new era of health science.
“The pandemic has revealed the huge disparities that exist within and between countries in access to quality healthcare, medicines, diagnostics and vaccines,” said Ramaphosa.
He said Africa is responding to COVID-19 with a depth of scientific knowledge, expertise and capacity to make its own vaccines.
The South African president said African countries have secured 500 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines through the African Union’s vaccine acquisition task team, but believes the continent needs more.
“These doses represent only around half of what the continent needs to vaccinate 900 million people in order to achieve the 70% target set by the World Health Organization,” said Ramaphosa.
In addition to producing vaccines for COVID-19, the new vaccine manufacturing facility will also focus on developing products to fight cancer, HIV and other diseases that are major health problems in Africa. The new South African plant aims to reach a goal of producing 1 billion vaccines annually by 2025.
John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the new plant will help address public health challenges confronting the continent.
