Africa CDC director calls for local vaccine manufacturing
"It’s time for us to manufacture our own vaccines," Jean Kaseya said at Semafor’s The Next 3 Billion.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) director, Jean Kaseya, has called for the continent to begin manufacturing vaccines locally, amid the ongoing Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak. This outbreak has had a significant impact on the economies of Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 6,778 cases of Ebola and 3,269 deaths have been documented in the current outbreak. While Uganda declared an end to its outbreak in late August, transmission remains ongoing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Despite the strain being discovered 19 years ago, Kaseya stated that there is still no vaccine available for Bundibugyo. He highlighted that if the United States or Europe had known about this strain for the same period, a vaccine would already be in place. Currently, a vaccine developed for the Zaire Ebola strain is undergoing Phase 3 trials to determine its efficacy for Bundibugyo, with results expected by the end of this year.
Multiple clinical trials for other vaccine candidates are also being pursued, but it may take some time to determine their effectiveness against Bundibugyo, Kaseya added.
Kaseya emphasized that it is not sufficient for companies to claim they will manufacture vaccines abroad for free and then bring them to Africa.
Written by urgent.news from Semafor's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
