WHO plans second center to train countries in making COVID vaccines

World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus delivers a statement on vaccination against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), during a European Union – African Union summit, in Brussels, Belgium, February 18, 2022. REUTERS/ Johanna Geron/Pool/File Photo

Feb 23 (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) plans to set up a second center to train countries to produce their own mRNA vaccines as part of its plan to get COVID-19 vaccinated in low- and middle-income countries, its leader said on Wednesday.

In a speech at a vaccine conference, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus did not name the countries that would be involved in expanding the project.

He said more details would be announced later.

Health ministers from South Korea, Serbia, Vietnam, Argentina and Indonesia’s foreign minister are due to take part in a WHO briefing on the technology transfer center later on Wednesday.

The news comes after the UN agency set up a technology transfer center in Cape Town, South Africa last year to give businesses in poor and middle-income countries the know-how needed to produce COVID-19 vaccines based on mRNA technology. Read more

Afrigen Biologics in Cape Town has used Moderna’s publicly available vaccine sequence (MRNA.O) to produce its own version of COVID from the US company shot in the lab and is working towards commercial production. Read more

Last week, six African countries – Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia – signed up as the first on the continent to receive the technology to manufacture mRNA vaccines. on a large scale and in accordance with international standards. Read more

On Wednesday, Tedros said that so far 20 countries have expressed interest in being trained in mRNA vaccine development by the South African hub.

Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru Editing by Josephine Mason and Mark Potter

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