Kagame toured the facility based in Germany on Tuesday 29th March 2022.
Following the visit, Kagame revealed via Twitter handle that he had an opportunity to tour the facility, alongside Şahin and his wife Ozlem Tureci, the firm’s founding couple.
“I had the great opportunity to visit with Uğur Şahin at BioNTech Group facility in Mainz, Germany. Impressive innovations in biotech HighLevelStuff. A very good person and couple he and Dr. Özlem Türeci are!” he tweeted.
Şahin who received Kagame founded BioNTech Group along with her wife, Özlem Türeci who is also part of board members and his former lecturer, Prof. Christoph Huber.
BioNTech in collaboration with Pfizer, manufactured Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine which offers 95% protection.
In February 2022, President Kagame attended high-level BioNTech Vaccine Equity for Africa meeting during which BioNTech Group’s modular container prototype known as BioNTainers was unveiled.
The prototype will be used to manufacture vaccines in African countries including Rwanda later this year.
The Head of State attended the meeting in Germany along with Macky Sall, the President of Senegal, which has been also selected among first countries to host BioNTech’s vaccine manufacturing plants on African continent.
At the time, Kagame said that the modular production system is a breakthrough which puts vaccine manufacturing within the reach of countries.
“Vaccine equity is not about what happened in the past. It is about the future. There could be another pandemic. But we will be faster and better prepared next time, because of this strong partnership between BioNTech and Africa,” he noted.
The President underscored that the choice to deploy the solution first in Africa ‘is a strong signal that a system designed to succeed on our continent can help speed up the pace of innovation for all of us’.
“A commitment of this scale from a major pharmaceutical company is something we have never seen in Africa, and we recognize its significance. Rwanda is firmly committed to this partnership and we will do our part to ensure its success and sustainability,” he said.
Africa uses 25% of vaccines manufactured every year. Of these, the continent only produces 1% and imports the remaining percentage. The figures evidence how the African continent lags behind in vaccine manufacturing.
The issue exacerbated during COVID-19 pandemic where Africa was the last continent to receive vaccines as countries with manufacturing plants hoarded them.
The situation awakened the continent to bridge the gap through strengthening its capacity to manufacture enough vaccines locally without heavily relying on imports.
However, the continent needs partners to be able to access advanced technology deployed to manufacture vaccines.
There has been a positive progress with the mRNA technology which can be deployed to produce multiple types of vaccines within a short timespan unlike the past when it would take up to five years.
So far, BioNTech has taken bold strides to introduce the technology in Africa where it signed agreements with countries including Rwanda and Senegal to set up vaccine manufacturing plants.
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