Nigeria is in talks with the World Bank’s private lending arm and other lenders to raise about N12.3 billion ($30 million) to help finance a vaccine plant, three decades after the nation’s only production facility was shut.
Biovaccines Nigeria Ltd, which is 49 percent owned by the Nigerian government with the balance held by May & Baker Nigeria Plc, is targeting to begin construction of the plant in the first quarter of next year, said Oyewale Tomori, chairman of Biovaccines, according to Bloomberg.
“We have done the last stages of our discussion” with the International Finance Corp., Tomori, said in a virtual interview in Lagos.
The coronavirus pandemic laid bare the desperate need for a local facility for Africa’s most populous nation, which depends on imports for all its inoculations. With countries prioritizing Covid-19 vaccines for their own citizens, many nations in Africa are struggling to get enough. Nigeria has administered doses to protect against coronavirus to just 1.2% of its people, according to Our World in Data.
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Biovaccines is in talks with companies in India and Indonesia to transfer technology, Tomori said. The plant in Otta, in the nation’s southwest Ogun State will initially “fill and finish” vaccines while full manufacturing “will come with time” and in collaboration with foreign partners, he said.
Fill and finish involves importing the raw material for the vaccines and then packaging it for distribution. South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd. and the Biovac Institute operate similar facilities. Elsewhere on the continent, there are small vaccine production facilities in Senegal and North Africa.
The company is also in talks with other multilateral financial institutions including African Development Bank, Patrick Ajah, chief executive officer of May & Baker, said in a separate interview.
Biovaccines is in discussion with the government to include producing Covid-19 vaccines, which wasn’t in the original joint venture agreement, according to Tomori.
The plant will have the capacity to inoculate about 10 million people every year, Tomori said. Nigeria has a population of more than 200 million.
