The World Health Organisation said on Friday that SA, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia would be the first on the continent to receive the technology needed to produce messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines.
The technology transfer project, launched last year, aims to help low- and middle-income countries manufacture mRNA vaccines at scale.
The vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are of the mRNA type.
The WHO established its global mRNA technology transfer hub after large-scale vaccine purchases by wealthy countries and companies prioritised sales to governments that could pay the highest price, pushing poorer countries to the back of the queue.
Director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus said the pandemic had demonstrated how reliance on a few companies to supply global public goods was limiting and dangerous.
President Cyril Ramaphosa urged the global vaccine distribution scheme Covax and vaccines alliance Gavi to buy vaccines from local manufacturing hubs.
“The lack of a market for vaccines produced in Africa is something that should be concerning to all of us,” Ramaphosa told a news conference on the sidelines of an EU-AU summit in Brussels.
“Organisations such as Covax and Gavi need to commit to buying vaccines from local manufacturers instead of going outside of those hubs that have been set up.”
Senegalese President Macky Sall said: “Our aim ... is to have 60% of vaccines given in Africa ... be produced in Africa as well.”
The first recipient of the mRNA technology transfer is Biovac, the partly state-owned vaccine manufacturer based in Cape Town.
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