SOUTH African scientists have created a replica of the Moderna Covid vaccine, which they believe will assist in raising the vaccination rates across Africa.
The continent currently has the world’s lowest Covid shot uptake.
Afrigen Biologics, the firm behind the new vaccine, said clinical testing will begin in November.
Moderna previously stated that it would not pursue its vaccine patents, allowing Cape Town experts to develop their own version and the World Health Organization (WHO) backed the researchers.
Afrigen Biologics’ director, Petro Terblanche, said the company was starting modest but had big plans to grow soon.
“We have used the sequence, which is the same sequence as the Moderna vaccine 1273,” he told the BBC.
“This is part of a global initiative to build capacity and capability in low and middle-income countries to become self-sufficient.”
The vaccine being reproduced is a messenger RNA vaccine developed by Moderna in the United States. Pfizer-BioNTech used the same method to create its vaccine. They were among the first Covid vaccines to be approved for use globally.
Rather than injecting a weakened or inactivated germ into the body, this sort of vaccine instructs cells how to manufacture a protein that will trigger an immune response inside our bodies.
Dr. Caryn Fenner, the company’s chief scientist, termed the achievement “really significant.”
“It puts the power in our hands to be able to produce our own vaccines for the future, to be ready for further pandemics, to produce clinical trial material on African soil and then to look at other diseases of relevance in Africa.”
In comparison to 60 percent in North America, 63 percent in Europe, and 61 percent in Asia, several African countries have only vaccinated less than 10% of their populations.
Despite having one of the highest vaccination rates on the continent, South Africa only has 27 percent of its population vaccinated.
According to reports, BioNTech, the company that teamed with Pfizer to develop an mRNA vaccine, is planning to open a vaccine manufacturing unit on the continent.
In Africa, a number of additional Covid-19 vaccine production facilities are also in the works, primarily for Russian and Chinese-made vaccines.
