Covid-19 vaccine maker BioNTech is looking to build malaria and tuberculosis vaccine production sites in Rwanda and Senegal, narrowing its search for African locations.
The future malaria and tuberculosis vaccines would be based on the so-called messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, also used in its Covid-19 shot, the German drug maker said. BioNTech did not say when production was likely to start. In July it said it would seek to develop a malaria vaccine, eyeing production in Africa, as it seeks to build on its success with its partner, Pfizer, in Covid shots.
In a meeting with Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, Senegalese President Macky Sall and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in Berlin on Friday, BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin confirmed the German biotech firm's intention to make mRNA vaccines in Africa, BioNTech said.
The sites would be near prospective vaccine hubs planned by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The project to develop manufacturing expertise in Africa marks a longer-term attempt to avoid a repeat of health-care inequalities highlighted by Covid.
The WHO has criticised a Covid vaccine supply gap between industrialised nations and low-income countries, particularly in Africa.
Attempts to set up African production of Covid vaccines have been limited so far.
Senegal's Institut Pasteur of Dakar (IPD) this month reached a deal with US company MedInstill for the bottling of Covid-19 shots. IPD, however, has yet to secure a partnership with a vaccine patent holder.
Pfizer and BioNTech last month struck a deal for SA's Biovac Institute to process about 100-million doses a year of their vaccine for Africa. Biovac will carry out final production steps, a process called fill and finish.
Johnson & Johnson has enlisted SA drugmaker Aspen Pharmacare also for the fill and finish process based on imported vaccine substance.
Senegal's IPD is the only facility in Africa producing a vaccine - a yellow-fever shot - that is pre-qualified by the WHO, which requires manufacturers to meet strict international standards.
There are fewer than 10 African manufacturers that produce vaccines against any disease, in Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, SA and Tunisia.
The EU has said it wants to back the development of vaccine production hubs in at least three African countries, including Senegal and SA.
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