Nigeria’s bid to establish its own COVID-19 vaccine production plant could serve as a catalyst to research and produce vaccines for other endemic diseases beyond the current needs of the pandemic, analysts have said.
It could become re-purposed to fight other life-threatening infectious diseases that require immunisation, such as poliomyelitis, tuberculosis, measles, cholera, hepatitis B and yellow fever, among others.
“There are some diseases we have in Africa which nobody is interested in because it doesn’t affect them overseas. This will be a great opportunity to research into those ones and create vaccines that are specific for our own environment,” Oyewale Tomori, the chairman of Biovaccines Nigeria Limited (BNL), a company at the helm of current plans to establish the plant in Ota, Ogun State, tells BusinessDay.
“To me, that’s even the more interesting thing about that because it then opens the opportunity for us to look at older vaccines and improve on them, and also generate new ones,” he says.
Nigeria finally got a foot in the door in its long journey to local production for the first time since talks about getting Africa to its vaccine needs began.
It made the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) list of first six countries in Africa to receive the technology needed to produce mRNA-based vaccines, after failing to qualify for some major partnership deals that saw countries like South Africa and Egypt top destinations of choice for the production of COVID-19 vaccine and pills.
But the demand for COVID-19 vaccine in the country might have thinned out or become inconsequential by the time the vaccine plant comes on stream or gets ripe enough to adopt this technology. The project, to cost $51 million, is estimated to span between five and seven years.
With dwindling infection rates in the country and rising relaxation of restrictions in some worst-hit countries, there are speculations that the COVID-19 pandemic could be nearing an end or inching towards an endemic status.
The government last year announced it was in talks with the International Finance Corporation and other lenders to raise about N12.3 billion ($30m) to help finance a vaccine plant, and it seems to be walking that talk.
Tomori says the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) provided the information and linkage to WHO’s plan to set up a COVID-19 mRNA technology hub in Africa.
BNL provided the technical details, completed and submitted the application while officials of the Ministry of Health led by Osagie Ehanire, the health minister, handled the diplomatic visits and shuttles required. And of many applications, Nigeria was chosen.
“It is a step forward in the efforts to produce vaccines locally, based on current mRNA technology. It also means when we decide to collaborate and contribute at the level and within the space of our competence, we will succeed,” Tomori, a retired professor of virology, states.
The disappointment in failing to invest in a responsive structure for vaccine production grew worse as the pandemic went on with Nigeria queuing behind the priorities of foreign producers for vaccines.
When Pfizer and Merck, both US multinational pharmaceutical firms, were looking to partner to localise production in Africa, for instance, Nigeria couldn’t compete due to a dearth of capacity, regulatory compliance, and the ability to meet international standards for quality-assured medicines.
Experts see part of that changing with this new development, despite the uncertainty of when it will materialise.
President Muhammadu Buhari in a statement last Friday urged the European Union (EU) to support the World Trade Organisation (WTO) towards the conclusion of negotiations on intellectual property rights’ waiver to ensure that the manufacturing of vaccines can start early in Africa.
Read also: AfDB to invest $3bn in vaccines manufacturing in Africa
According to Buhari, his government will prioritise the manufacturing of vaccines as well as the sharing and transfer of technology, speaking during the 6th Europe-Africa Summit.
How mRNA works
The messenger RNA is a sequence of genetic code that tells cells what proteins to build so that they can function.
To produce, scientists develop a synthetic version of some of the virus, inject it into the human body cells to read it as an instruction to start building the proteins, including COVID-19’s distinctive ‘spike’ protein.
The body then mounts an immune response by producing antibodies to fight the virus proteins made by our cells. This prepares the immune system to fight the real virus when encountered later on.
It is different from the way some other vaccines work, where a small part of the virus itself, or the whole virus (weakened or dead), is injected into the body to trigger an immune response.
WHO established the global mRNA technology transfer hub last year to support manufacturers in low- and middle-income countries to produce their own vaccines, ensuring that they have all the necessary operating procedures and know-how to manufacture mRNA vaccines at scale and according to international standards.
Primarily set up to address the COVID-19 emergency, the hub has the potential to expand manufacturing capacity for other products as well.
Depending on the infrastructure, workforce and clinical research and regulatory capacity in place, WHO and partners will work with the beneficiary countries to develop a roadmap and put in place the necessary training and support so that they can start producing vaccines as soon as possible.
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