Biovac Institute - The African Mirror

Dec

2021

South Africa’s Biovac to start making Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in early 2022 – exec

SOUTH Africa's Biovac Institute will start making Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine early next year after receiving the drug substance from Europe, according to a Pfizer executive. Biovac's "fill and finish" deal with Pfizer, announced in July, will make it one of the few companies processing COVID-19 shots in Africa, where many countries have struggled to access sufficient doses during the pandemic. "We expect that the Cape Town facility will be incorporated into our supply chain by the end of this year," Patrick van der Loo, Pfizer regional president for Africa and the Middle East, told a conference in Kigali on vaccine…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

Macron pledges help for Africa

COVID-19

PRESIDENT Emmanuel Macron has announced that France would invest in boosting the production of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa, to help close a gap in the availability of the shots between African and Western nations. Speaking at a joint news conference with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Pretoria, Macron said Africa made up around 20% of the world's need for vaccines but only 1% of vaccine production. "How do we boost the production of vaccines on the African continent?" he said. "On this, we will this afternoon have an investment strategy to help these industrials produce more, and quite quickly."…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

South Africa’s Biovac in talks to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines

COVID-19

WENDELL ROELF and ALEXANDER WINNING A South African company part-owned by the government is in talks with the global COVID-19 vaccine distribution scheme and pharmaceutical companies to produce some of the vaccines the country needs to protect itself against the disease. The Biovac Institute, a Cape Town-based joint venture between the government and private sector, could produce up to 30 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines per year, depending on the technology involved, Chief Executive Morena Makhoana told Reuters. Depending on whether the vaccines require a one- or two-dose regimen, that could be enough for a quarter or half of South…