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South Africa may simply signal an agreement to help produce a Covid-19 vaccine, potentially access to immunization on a continent with limited production capacities.
According to Helen Rees, chair of the organization’s Scientific Advisory Board, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a global organization budgeting for vaccine development, sees the Cape Town-based Biovac Institute as a filling and finishing site. The national vaccine company is one of the few in the country that has the ability to pack doses at sterile suppliers if clinical trials are successful.
“Our goal is partnerships,” said Morena Makhoana, CEO of Biovac, in response to questions. “Once this is signed, we can make an announcement.”
A production agreement “will put Africa on the road to other continents, just like clinical trials do,” he said.
South Africa is the only country in Africa to host several clinical studies. It has another 2,000 people participating in the vaccine trials of AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford, while Novavax Inc. announced earlier this month the start of a Phase 2b clinical trial. A fifth of the 60,000 volunteers expected to internationalize on the Johnson-Johnson Covid-19 vaccine will be in South Africa, said Glenda Gray, executive director of the South African Medical Research Council.
With 618,286 cases shown, the country has the fifth largest outbreak in the world.
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“Covid-19 has highlighted the fact that we have very limited capacity for vaccine production across the African continent, including in countries like South Africa,” Rees said. “But there is a massive interest and we want to have more countries capable of making vaccines.”