Ghana will play her role to ensure Pan-African Vaccine Manufacturing project works – Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Monday, 18th December 2023, attended the inauguration of the BioNTech Vaccine Manufacturing Site in Kigali.

The ceremony, he said, was a reaffirmation of Afrca’s commitment to the rest of the world that the construction of an end-to-end vaccine manufacturing facility, involving Rwanda, Senegal and Ghana, is truly underway.

“When we met in Marburg in Germany in June 2022, there were some who secretly doubted our collective resolve to bring this all-important project, which will boost Africa’s capacity to be self-reliant in the production of vaccines, to fruition.

“I am happy we have, with Monday’s event, been able to confound these doubting Thomases. The import of this Pan-African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative Project is that we have had to work together,” the President wrote on his Facebook page.

“For us in Ghana,” he added, “the Pan-African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative Project fits perfectly with our roadmap for domestic vaccine development and manufacturing. Ghana is playing her role to this end, and we will work to make the Project a success.”

The president further stated that Ghana’s research institutions are undergoing capacity-building to be ready for the discovery and development of vaccines and other biologicals, and a consortium of Ghanaian pharmaceutical companies, led by DEKS Vaccines Ltd., is working closely with BioNTech Rwanda, BioNTech Germany and kENUP to fill, finish and package the drug product in Ghana from the plant in Rwanda.

In October this year, he said, at the Global Gateway Forum in Brussels, Ghana received some thirty-two million euros (€32 million) from the European Union, to help realise our goal of being a hub for vaccine manufacturing.

The development of the BioNTech Vaccine Manufacturing site was funded by COVID-19 vaccine maker, BioNTech, a German company, at the cost of about US$150 million.

The company, which developed the Western world’s most widely used COVID-19 shot with U.S. partner, Pfizer, has laid out a plan to enable African countries to produce its Comirnaty-branded shot under BioNTech’s supervision.

BioNTech aims to start production at its messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccine factory site in Rwanda in 2025 – the first mRNA vaccine manufacturing site to be established by a foreign company on the continent.

The Rwandan facility will be equipped to manufacture a range of mRNA-based vaccines targeted to the needs of the African Union member states, including the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and BioNTech’s investigational malaria and tuberculosis vaccines.

The Company exploits a wide array of computational discovery and therapeutic drug platforms for the rapid development of novel biopharmaceuticals.