South Africa’s COVID vaccine production plant, the first of its kind in Africa is at risk of closure after failing to secure a single according to a report from Reuters. President Cyril Ramaphosa is reported to be in talks with three other African nations in effort to save the venture.
The World Health Organization had called the licensing deal between Johnson & Johnson and Aspen Pharmacare to manufacture the Aspenovax COVID vaccine, a “transformative moment” in the pursuit of equitable access to vaccines. The vaccine is the J&J adenovirus vector vaccine sold under the Aspen brand.
However, after initial vaccine delivery shortfalls, the African continent is now well stocked with vaccines, while the poor infrastructure hampers vaccine distribution.
“There’ve been no orders received for Aspenovax,” Reuters reported, citing a phone conversation with Aspen senior director Stavros Nicolaou.
“If we don’t get orders, we would have to repurpose these lines back into other things that we were previously doing,” he told CapeTalk.
There are several other such vaccine plants in various stages, as the African Union aims at 60% of locally produced vaccines for continent locally by 2040, up from the current 1%.
“If Aspen doesn’t get production, what chance is there for any of the other initiatives?” Nicolaou remarked.
Regarding possible options, he said: “We are exploring various options. It is our medium-to-long-term objective to look at providing a sterile [processing] platform and solutions for the continent but the short-term needs to be sorted out.”
Moderna announced an agreement with Kenya to set up its first mRNA manufacturing facility in Africa with the aim of producing up to 500 million doses a year.
Source: Seeking Alpha
