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 The World Health Organization picked Afrigen for a pilot to give
poor and middle-income countries the know-how and licenses to make
COVID-19 vaccines, in what South African President Cyril Ramaphosa
called an historic step.
The "tech transfer hub" will make it possible for African companies
to manufacture mRNA vaccines, the advanced technology used in Pfizer
and Moderna shots, in 9-12 months, the WHO said on Monday.
"The race is on to get manufacturing capacity in Africa to give us
vaccine security," Afrigen's Petro Terblanche told Reuters on
Wednesday during the first media visit to its new 130 million rand
($9 million) facility.
"The fastest route for us to that goal would be to go with one of
the vaccines that already has market authorization ... However,
there is place for other platforms particularly in the area of
stability, so it is not impossible that we will look at two
different platforms," Terblanche added.
Referring to the instability of mRNA vaccines, which require very
cold storage, she said Afrigen could access technology to produce a
"thermo-stable" mRNA vaccine that could be kept at temperatures of
between 2-8 degrees Celsius.
Afrigen's facility will be capable of producing a maximum 10,000
vials a day of COVID-19 vaccines and it has partnered with local
manufacturer Biovac which can produce 30 to 50 million doses a year
to distribute across Africa, she added.
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 The ultra-sterile vaccine unit,
with its white-washed walls and warren of
interlinked airlocked rooms, is still an empty
shell. However, Terblanche said it should be
fully operational by February of next year.
Research partners include leading South African universities and
local genomics surveillance lab KRISP, which helped detect the Beta
variant dominating a third wave of local infections.
The first step for Afrigen will see scientists sent to selected tech
transfer partners in the United States or Europe for training. This
team will then train their partners at Biovac and others across
Africa in a hub and spoke model.
"A safe, affordable vaccine ready to use in humans against COVID-19
will be our first vaccine candidate, to be followed by other
vaccines important for Africa," Terblanche said, highlighting
infectious diseases such as TB and Ebola.
($1 = 14.2398 rand)
(Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Editing by Alexander Winning and
Alexander Smith)
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