International
BioNTech in Rwanda, a game changer in Africa’s health sector
On
March 13, Rwanda received six shipping containers for the first BioNTainer,
infrastructure needed to introduce the mRNA vaccine production facility in
Africa for the first time.
The
development marked a significant milestone on the continent on the road to
achieve health security.
Rwanda
was the first to host these mobile vaccine factories among the three selected
African countries – Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal.
The BioNTainers
- each
measuring 800 square meters - are the clean rooms equipped with
state-of-the-art production solutions.
They
can produce up to 50 million doses annually and conduct trials on new
therapeutics for malaria, Tuberculosis, HIV and cancers, among others.
Every
year, malaria kills hundreds of thousands of children under the age of five
years in Africa. The continent is also a home to two-thirds of all people
living with HIV globally while 25 per cent of TB related deaths occur in Africa
which has 16% of the world’s population.
Despite
the fact that Africa carries a high burden of infectious diseases, it relies
heavily on imported pharmaceutical products from the European Union, India, and
China. The continent consumes nearly 25 per cent of the globally produced vaccines
but imports 99 per cent and 95 per cent of its vaccines and medicines,
respectively.
The mRNA
vaccine production project in Rwanda will help the continent secure vaccine
resilience for the future, and invest in new research to address the endemic
diseases that cause millions of unnecessarily deaths due to relying on the
outside world for medicine and vaccines.
This
move is a milestone because it highlights how possible it is for Africa to
achieve health security. The facility which will take at least one year before
it starts producing doses, will have its vaccines distributed to all member
countries of African Union.
Vaccine
production goes hand in hand with skilled staff. Rwanda not only invested in
establishing a vaccine production facility but also worked on providing
training to medics.
In June 2022, the country’s cabinet approved
the establishment of the African Bio-manufacturing Institute (ABI), an
innovative structure bringing together industry training providers and
universities to help train, re-skill and upskill professionals in the industry.
The
institute which will be fully funded by various partners including the Rwandan
government and BionTech, is expected to provide a solution for workforce
development, from short courses, to graduate degrees.
It
will narrow the gap of lack of highly qualified staff with expertise in a wide
range of specialties particularly in vaccine manufacturing.
Rwanda
intends to build on this investment to attract a vibrant biopharmaceutical research
and manufacturing sector. This will help the African Union to achieve its
target of producing 60 per cent of the needed vaccines on the continent by
2024.