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.
Also present was the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo; the Director General of World Health Organization, Tedros Ghebreyesus; Dr. John Nkengasong, the first Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the CEO of BioNTech, Prof. Ugur Sahin among others.
President Paul Kagame who participated in the meeting 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.
Since the first batch of COVID-19 vaccine doses was distributed, more than 10 billion have been administered. With 1.2 billion population. Africa has administered 400 million doses. As at the end of last year, only seven countries had inoculated at 40% of their population while all developed countries have hit the target.
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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