Vaccine technology transfer center to open in South Africa

The head of the World Health Organization says the U.N. organization is in talks to create the first-ever technology transfer hub for coronavirus vaccines in South Africa, a move to boost supply to the continent desperately in need of COVID-19 jabs

JOHANNESBURG -- The World Health Organization is in talks to create the first-ever technology transfer hub for coronavirus vaccines in South Africa, a move to boost supply to the continent that's desperately in need of COVID-19 shots, the head of the U.N. agency announced. The new consortium will include drug makers Biovac and Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, a network of universities and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. They will develop training facilities for other vaccine makers to make shots that use a genetic code of the spike protein, known as mRNA vaccines. “We are now in discussions with several companies that have indicated interest in providing their mRNA technology,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus at a virtual press briefing on Monday. That technology is used in the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. Africa will soon be able to “take responsibility for the health of our people,” as a result of the new WHO-backed technology transfer hub, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in the press briefing.