The hoarding of vaccines by northern countries during the Covid-19 pandemic brought to the table the bloody reality of Africa’s vaccine dependence, where 99% of doses administered come from outside the continent. To gain autonomy, some countries, including Senegal, South Africa and Rwanda, launched a frantic race to build vaccine production centers. However, patents and intellectual property in the hands of large pharmaceutical companies continued to limit Africa’s ability to act. To break this tie, the continent is relying on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which is much cheaper and easier to deliver than classic vaccines, while Covid-19 has been tested on a large scale and successfully and is considered revolutionary by experts.
“The difference between a messenger RNA vaccine and a more traditional vaccine is that today it is possible to design an RNA sequence from a virus and the protein within two weeks [a complementary molecule of DNA that does almost all the work of life] So when you give it to someone, their cells produce the antigen. The person is the reactor that makes the vaccine. This is a revolution because the only thing every country needs is someone to teach them how to do it, while with traditional vaccines there is a huge intellectual property hurdle due to the virus,” says José Castillo, manager of the company Quantoom Biosciences specializes in this technology and is based in Belgium.
For three days, world experts in health and new technologies, scientists and entrepreneurs, managers and representatives of research and innovation centers met at the Abdou Diouf Conference Center in Diamniadio near Dakar as part of the conference organized by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This series of annual meetings, the aim of which is to stimulate the search for solutions to global health problems, was launched two decades ago, in which the aforementioned foundation and its partners launched 3,800 projects in 118 countries with a total value of around 1.5 billion euros have promoted.
This Monday, Bill Gates himself, co-president of the foundation, announced in Dakar an aid of 37.7 million euros to facilitate access to Quantoom Biosciences’ low-cost mRNA research and manufacturing platform. The Pasteur Institute of Dakar – which will open a vaccine production center called Madiba in the coming years – and Biovac, a South African research institute, will each receive 4.7 million to acquire the technology that will allow them to produce vaccines adapted to the local population establish context. Another 18.8 million will go to the Quantoom platform, while the remaining 9.4 million will be distributed to other vaccine production centers in poor or middle-income countries.
“Expanding our capacity to discover and produce mRNA vaccines adapted to Africa is an important and necessary step towards vaccine self-sufficiency in the region,” said Dr. Amadou Sall, head of the Pasteur Institute in Dakar. “We are pleased with this new funding, which will support the development of vital technologies on the continent and contribute to global health security through growth in the supply and access of vaccinations, which will enable us to achieve greater health equity in the world. ” ” he added.
A scientist works with samples at a WHO-supported mRNA vaccine center in Cape Town, South Africa.SHELLEY CHRISTIANS (Portal)
The mRNA technology – whose inventors have just won the Nobel Prize in Medicine – is considered a revolution, especially in dealing with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and Lassa fever, which affect populations in the poorest countries. This can reduce research and manufacturing costs and therefore make them more accessible. “By putting innovative mRNA technology in the hands of researchers and producers in Africa and around the world, more people will benefit from next-generation vaccines,” explains Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate, Nigeria’s Minister of Health. “Innovation can be transformative,” agrees Morena Makhoana, head of the South African Biovac Institute, “but only if it is accessible to the people who need it most.”
Quantoom Biosciences is working on a modular mRNA technology that reduces the production costs of this type of vaccine by up to 50% compared to the traditional mRNA that companies like Moderna produce. However, producing these vaccines requires highly trained experts – who can support countries with training deficits – or large laboratories, allowing production to be decentralized. This social interest – compatible with economic viability – is what allowed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to subsidize the Quantoom project.
“We transfer knowledge,” says Castillo, the manager at Quantoom. “I also believe that one way to stop the tragedy of emigration is to give countries the opportunity to develop and become masters of their own research.” Today, many companies transfer knowledge to manufacturers, but the virus vials remain in their country. They send the vaccines wholesale to Africa and bottle them here. That’s fine, but the fundamental value lies in research and development,” he emphasizes. “The only thing that is needed is this transfer of skills that, for example, the Pasteur Institute in Dakar can have.” [ownership] about the RNA sequences they will design.”
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