Source::AP
In an attempt to accelerate the progress to normalcy in the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) is creating a global training centre to help poorer countries to make vaccines, antibodies and cancer treatments using mRNA technology that has been used effectively utilized to make COVID-19 vaccines.
In a press briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General announced that their new hub will be in South Korea and that hub will share mRNA technology being developed by WHO and South Africa who are working to recreate the Moderna vaccine.
This is the first time WHO has used such unusual and unorthodox efforts to reverse-engineer commercially made vaccines, making an end-run around the pharmaceutical industry, which previously prioritized supplying rich countries over poor in both sales and manufacturing.
Moderna and Pfizer BioNTech, two of the most significant vaccine makers of COVID-19 declined to share their vaccine recipe or technological prerequisite required to make it to WHO or their partners.
These tactics have been used by the WHO due to the global disparity in the access to COVID-19 vaccines between countries. Africa only produces about 1 per cent of their vaccines and only 11 per cent of the African populace is immunized. This has been in contrast to European and other Western Countries with many countries having more than 75 per cent of their population fully vaccinated and more than half have taken a booster shot.
In response to this disparity, WHO has announced that it will provide the knowledge and the technological know-how to make COVID-19 vaccines to six African countries - Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia. And five more countries are in line to receive support: Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Serbia and Vietnam.
This attempt has already borne fruit. A WHO partner in South Africa, attempting to replicate Moderna's vaccine has notified that it has successfully made a vaccine candidate and will soon start laboratory testing. But WHO has estimated that a proper vaccine from them or their partners might not come until the next year or even 2024. Therefore, many have called for the US to pressurize international pharmaceutical companies to share their COVID-19 vaccine recipes and know-how.
