Plans to expand African vaccine production face steep hurdles

In March 2022, when the pandemic was still raging, the messenger RNA (mRNA) company Moderna announced it would build a $500 million plant in Kenya to manufacture half a billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine annually. “ This is major ,” Kenyan President William Ruto said at the time. The plant would help reduce Africa’s dependence on vaccines produced elsewhere, Ruto said—a situation that had turned disastrous during the pandemic—and bring economic benefits as well. But Moderna may never break ground on the Kenya factory. On 11 April, the company said it had “paused its efforts” because not a single African country had ordered its COVID-19 vaccine since 2022, leading to $1 billion in losses and write-offs. The move triggered a bitter reaction from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), which said, “Moderna is abandoning a commitment to build highly needed and relevant vaccine manufacturing capabilities in Africa.” Moderna’s decision is a reality check of sorts for other schemes to increase vaccine production on the continent. Many are underway, including facilities in Rwanda, Senegal, and South Africa by the other big mRNA vaccine company, BioNTech, and an up to $1 billion investment by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. But there is no longer much demand for COVID-19 vaccines in Africa, and shots for many other diseases prevalent there are already produced cheaply and in large volume...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research