The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced, at a summit held between the European Union and the African Union, the first six countries in Africa that will receive the necessary technology for the production of mRNA vaccines. They are: Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia.
The announcement was made at a ceremony organized by the Council of Europe, France, South Africa and the WHO, and was attended by the presidents of France, Emmanuel Macron, of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, and of the Council of Europe, Charles Michel.
O hub Global mRNA technology transfer was established in April 2021 to support manufacturers in low- and middle-income countries to produce their own vaccines, ensuring they have all operational procedures in place and know-how needed to manufacture mRNA vaccines at scale and in accordance with international standards.
Created primarily to deal with the coronavirus, the hub has the potential to expand the manufacture of other products that are a priority to meet local health needs. For example: insulin for treating diabetes, drugs against cancer and potentially vaccines for other diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS.
The technology is the same used by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNtech in the manufacture of the Comirnaty vaccine against Covid-19. Synthetic messenger RNA helps the body produce the proteins found on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 to generate immunity.
“No other event like the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that the dependence of some companies to provide global public goods is limiting and dangerous. In the medium to long term, the best way to deal with health emergencies and achieve universal health coverage is to significantly increase the capacity of all regions to manufacture the health products they need, with equitable access as their primary objective.” declared Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
For Cyril Ramaphosa, “this is an initiative that will allow us to make our own vaccines and that, for us, is very important. It means mutual respect, mutual recognition of what we can all bring to the party, investing in our economies, investing in infrastructure and, in many ways, giving back to the continent.”
In Latin America, the Institute of Technology in Immunobiologicals (Bio-Manguinhos), of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), was selected by the WHO in September last year as a development center for mRNA vaccines.
Source: CNN Brasil
