Covid Jabs for Poor Nations: WHO setting up tech transfer hub in SA
The WHO is setting up a hub in South Africa to give companies from poor and middle-income countries the know-how and licenses to produce Covid-19 vaccines, in what President Cyril Ramaphosa called an historic step to spread lifesaving technology.
The "tech transfer hub" could make it possible for African companies to begin manufacturing mRNA vaccines - the advanced technology now used in shots from Pfizer and Moderna - in as little as 9-12 months, the World Health Organization said.
It announced two companies had signed up so far, and said it was in talks with Pfizer and Moderna about participating.
"Through this initiative we will change the narrative of an Africa that is a centre of disease and poor development," said Ramaphosa, speaking by video link at the WHO press conference where the programme was launched.
The WHO has long been calling for rich countries to share vaccine technology. The initiative to help African countries produce vaccines is especially urgent at a time when cases and deaths on the continent have increased by almost 40% over the past week.
"Today I am delighted to announce that WHO is in discussions with a consortium of companies and institutions to establish a technology transfer hub in South Africa," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference on Monday evening.
In a statement, the WHO described the hub as a training facility, "where the technology is established at industrial scale and clinical development performed. Interested manufacturers from low- and middle-income countries can receive training and any necessary licenses to the technology."
The two South African companies participating so far were Afrigen Biologics, described as a development company, and Biovac, described as a manufacturer.
WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said the WHO was in negotiations with Pfizer and Moderna, which have both produced vaccines widely used in rich countries using new mRNA technology, which sends instructions into the body to make proteins that trigger an immune response.
"We could even expect to see within 9 to 12 months vaccines being produced in Africa, in South Africa," Swaminathan said.
FOURTH WAVE
In Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel received a Moderna coronavirus vaccine as her second jab, after getting AstraZeneca as the first, a spokesman said yesterday.
The 66-year-old took her first dose of AstraZeneca's vaccine in April, more than two weeks after German authorities recommended use of the jab only for people aged 60 and over, reports AFP.
Portugal fears a fourth wave of the pandemic may take hold with the highly-contagious Delta variant now accounting for more than 60 percent of new cases in the capital.
Lisbon is among a dozen places which did not move into the final phase of easing the lockdown that much of the country has enjoyed.
Travel between the capital region and the rest of Portugal was banned from last weekend to try to halt the spread of the infection.
First identified in India, the Delta variant has become the predominant strain in the greater Lisbon area, according to the national health institute INSA.
"We are trying to delay its arrival in other regions of the country so that people can protect themselves more through vaccination," Health Minister Marta Temido said Monday.
The French government yesterday called for more people to get their Covid shots after a slowdown in reservations, and before the more contagious Delta variant of the virus becomes dominant.
"We have the doses, we're organised, we can't miss this chance," a health ministry spokeswoman said at a weekly press conference.
Australia's most populous state yesterday reported its biggest daily increase in Covid-19 cases in nearly a week and extended the wearing of masks inside buildings, while New Zealand paused quarantine-free travel with the state.
Meanwhile, experts said that India's vaccinations over the next few weeks could fall short of the pace set on the first day of a federal campaign unless it makes inroads in its vast hinterland and bridges a shortage of doses.
The 8.6 million doses injected on Monday represented a record two-fold jump as India kicked off free inoculation for all adults, reversing a policy for individual states and hospitals to buy vaccines for those aged 18 to 44.
"This is clearly not sustainable," Chandrakant Lahariya, an expert in public policy and health systems, told Reuters.
"With such one-day drives, many states have consumed most of their current vaccine stocks, which will affect the vaccination in days to follow."
Comments