Cape Town – The national Department of Health has welcomed the progress of the mRNA technology transfer programme and its vaccine development.
More than 200 international participants involved in the programme concluded their first face-to-face meeting on Thursday.
The programme aims to contribute to equitable access to mRNA vaccines by increasing the distribution of sustainable manufacturing capacity across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs); enhancing regional and inter-regional collaboration; and developing and empowering a local workforce through tailored and inclusive training and expert support.
“Vaccine development at Afrigen Biologics and manufactured by the Biovac Institute have given us new hope for a sustainable and affordable vaccination programme,” Health Minister Joe Phaahla said.
“The minister of health has the statutory responsibility for protecting, promoting, improving and maintaining the health of the population, and in doing so must, within the limits of available resources, ensure the provision of essential health services to the population of the Republic.
“The health departments and private health providers provide the instruments for achieving this mandate.”
The programme was launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Medicines Patent Pool in June 2021.
So far, Afrigen has established a Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing process and is currently scaling up that process to a level suitable for manufacturing vaccine batches to be used in Phase I/II clinical trials.
“I am delighted to be here in Cape Town with our partners to support a sustainable model for mRNA technology transfer to give low- and middle-income countries equitable access to vaccines and other lifesaving health products,” said WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“I am immensely proud of the achievement of all those involved in this project. In less than two years we have shown that, when we work collaboratively, we succeed collectively.”
Cape Times