Pharmaceutical manufacturers ramp up their COVID-19 efforts in Africa
Africa
With only 4.5 % of people in Africa fully vaccinated against COVID-19 , the pharmaceutical industry is facing increasing pressures to manufacture drugs in the continent from both Africa ’ s countries and the World Health Organisation ( WHO ).
Being urged to set up vaccine plants , and secure the supply of COVID-19 vaccines for the continent , both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have recently announced their plans to invest and construct manufacturing facilities on the continent .
Moderna plans to invest US $ 500mn to develop a new COVID-19 vaccine factory for the production of 500mn doses , while BioNTech has confirmed the construction in 2022 of an end-to-end manufacturing facility .
These announcements follow the call for intellectual property rights for the COVID-19 vaccine to be waived to help end the pandemic , and give developing countries access to the vaccine . manufacturingglobal . com 11