WHO Officially Launches mRNA Tech Hub in South Africa

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Facts

  • The WHO on Thursday ceremonially launched the first mRNA vaccine hub in Africa. The facility was first established in Cape Town, South Africa in 2021 to help poor countries gain access to mRNA COVID vaccines.1
  • In a historic step, the WHO slated South African biotech company Afrigen Biologies to lead the project. The company used Moderna's publicly-available mRNA sequence to develop and produce its own 'AfriVac 2121' jab for distribution in poor and middle-income countries.2
  • While the Afrigen Biologics COVID vaccine is the first to be designed and manufactured at a laboratory in Africa, the hub is ramping up to a commercial scale. Clinical trials are expected to take place before the end of 2023 in the hope of approval in 2024.3
  • Although the Afrigen vaccine is modeled after Moderna's vaccine, Petro Terblanche, Afrigen's managing director said, 'We haven't copied Moderna, we've developed our own processes because Moderna didn't give us any technology.'3
  • Following their work on the COVID vaccine, in September 2022, the hub began working on an mRNA Tuberculosis vaccine. Approx. 1.5M people die annually of the disease, mostly in developing countries, with South Africa home to more than 300K cases alone.4

Sources: 1Barrons, 2Al Jazeera, 3Silicon Republic and 4Bloomberg.

Narratives

  • Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by The Times of India. Despite media coverage and hype, many in the scientific community are beginning to believe that mRNA vaccines are potentially dangerous and sometimes even deadly. An increasing number of scientists are calling for the withdrawal of the COVID mRNA vaccines, especially for younger individuals. The vaccines have also failed to meet any of the initial promises made by scientists and government officials, including not registering the damage the vaccines can do to the heart and other organs. These products must be removed from the market if they are proven unsafe.
  • Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by News. Despite the baseless fear-mongering from certain groups, the increased distribution of mRNA vaccines has made the world much better off when facing pandemic conditions. As the world emerges from the panic of COVID, science must now turn to developing vaccines for other deadly diseases. mRNA technology is designed to be nimble and quickly adjusted to save lives in a short amount of time, and must be allowed to continue to grow and be the foundation of combatting infectious and non-infectious diseases in the foreseeable future.