In an effort described by President Cyril Ramaphosa as “historic”, SA has teamed up with France and the World Health Organization (WHO) to set up a technology hub to transfer skills to local manufacturers.
Ramaphosa, who joined French President Emmanuel Macron and WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in making the announcement on Monday, said the move would improve Africa’s ability to produce vaccines and put it on a “path to self-determination”.
The “technology transfer hub” will be located in SA and will be the first on the continent using messenger RNA, or mRNA, which has been used for the first time to make vaccines since the outbreak of Covid-19. Some trials have indicated that vaccines made with the technology are more effective.
While hailing the initiative, which he said would produce vaccines for the whole continent, Ramaphosa said it was only a first step, and he used the occasion to repeat the call for pharmaceutical companies to temporarily waive their intellectual property rights in the development of Covid-19 vaccines and share their technology.
It is hoped that such a step, championed by SA and India, and supported by the US, will boost manufacturing capacity and vaccine access in developing countries. Ahead of negotiations at the World Trade Organization, the move faced opposition from countries that play host to some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, among them the UK, which hosted the Group of Seven summit earlier in June.
“We need solidarity,” Ramaphosa said, as he called for more equitable access to fight the pandemic globally. “Vaccine nationalism must come to an end. It’s not equitable or fair.”
In his comments, Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed support for the waivers and said “relying on a few companies” to supply a global public good was “limiting”.
While the hub would help in the medium to long term, the WHO chief said the world needs to “to do everything possible to ensure more equitable distribution of vaccines” to fight the pandemic now, including to Covax, the WHO-led initiative to provide vaccines to lower- and middle-income countries.
“I hope this will be a key moment for increasing the production of vaccines in Africa,” he said.
The WHO has previously set up such hubs, which provide know-how and training to local manufacturers, to boost global production of influenza vaccines. During a visit to SA in May, Macron said he was pushing for faster transfer of technology to allow poorer countries to start manufacturing their own Covid-19 jabs.
The prospects for a wider access by SA to a variety of vaccines is looking brighter as the health products regulator is at a “very advanced stage” in reviewing the Chinese Coronavac vaccine, and is conducting a rolling review of the Russian Sputnik vaccine.
The SA Health Products Regulator (Sahpra) has so far approved the Pfizer and the Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
In a statement, Sahpra said applications for approval had been received for the Coronavac vaccine manufactured by Sinovac and the Sputnik V manufactured by Gamaleya Research Institute.
Ramaphosa spoke as SA is in the midst of a third wave of infections he described as “more vicious than previous ones”.
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