Development finance institution the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group has finalised a $15-million loan to biopharmaceutical company Biologicals and Vaccines Institute of South Africa (Biovac) to support a new multi-vaccine manufacturing facility in Cape Town that will significantly expand Africa’s domestic capacity to produce vaccines.
The expansion programme will increase Biovac’s total yearly manufacturing capacity to 500-million doses. Biovac’s new facility is expected to be completed by 2028 and will initially produce vaccines for cholera (oral) and subsequently for polio (IPV), pneumonia (PCV) and meningitis (MenX).
Once complete, Biovac is expected to become Africa’s first end-to-end producer of oral cholera vaccine and South Africa’s first locally produced inactivated polio vaccine.
This will also mean that Biovac will be the first on the continent to produce inactivated polio vaccine through technology-transfer partnerships with French pharmaceutical and healthcare company Sanofi, the International Vaccine Institute, Biological E Limited, EuBiologics and Bharat Biotech.
“This investment in Biovac is about building Africa’s health sovereignty, strengthening regional value chains and creating industrial capabilities that will enable the continent to respond more effectively to future health emergencies,” says AfDB Group VP for private sector, infrastructure and industrialisation Solomon Quaynor.
