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Ramaphosa working with counterparts to save Africa’s first COVID-19 vaccine plant from closure

  • FILE PHOTO - A worker at the South African pharmaceutical major Aspen Pharmacare, is seen at its Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine facility in Gqeberha, South Africa, October 25, 2021. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko
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  • SABC-News-Aspen-SA-Reuters-750x375 (1)
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President Cyril Ramaphosa says he is working with his counterparts from Egypt, Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda to save South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare.

Some company executives say Africa’s first COVID-19 vaccine plant, risks shutting down after not receiving a single order.

Its sales and orders went down after a number of Western country’s donated vaccines.

Speaking to SABC News, President Ramaphosa saiys the issue has to do with the global network that buys vaccines.

“We are working on that issue of Aspen. We’re very very concerned, and it has to do with the global network that buys vaccines and myself, together with a number of African presidents,” says Ramaphosa.

Ramaphosa says the presidents are making plans to ensure that vaccines used in Africa are bought from companies that make vaccines in Africa.

“This may just be affecting us and Aspen, but it’ll affect all the other countries that are aspiring vaccine manufacturing. So we’re taking this matter very seriously, says Ramaphosa.

He says they are taking steps to ensure that orders are secured.

Video: President Ramaphosa vows to keep Aspen vaccine facility open

Aspen COVID-19 vaccine plant risks closure after no orders: Executive

Africa’s first COVID-19 vaccination plant, touted last year as a trailblazer for an under-vaccinated continent frustrated by sluggish Western handouts, risks shutting down after receiving not a single order, a company executive said on Saturday.

South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare negotiated a licensing deal in November to package and sell Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine and distribute it across Africa.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) called the deal a “transformative moment” in the drive towards levelling stark inequalities in access to COVID vaccines.

With only a sixth of adults in Africa fully vaccinated, according to the latest WHO figures from the end of March, Aspen’s agreement to sell an Aspen-branded COVID-19 vaccine, Aspenovax, throughout Africa seemed like a sure bet.

South Africa, which has vaccinated 30% of its population, also looks set to experience a fifth wave of infections.

Yet, “There’ve been no orders received for Aspenovax,” Aspen senior director Stavros Nicolaou told Reuters over the phone.

“If we don’t get any kind of vaccine orders, then clearly there’ll be very little rationale for retaining the lines that we’re currently using for production,” he said of the COVID-19 vaccine plant in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape.

African countries have struggled with logistical issues, lack of skilled staff, cold chains and other problems surrounding the distribution of vaccines. Another issue is that, after initially leaving Africa out in the cold, donor countries have since paid up and the continent is now well supplied.

Nicolaou said that in the long run the aim was to shift to producing other vaccines but that the firm had banked on these initial volumes to buy it time to establish the operation.

“If you don’t breach this short term gap with orders, you can’t sustain these capacities on the continent,” he said, at a time when health officials want to vaccinate three-quarters of the continent’s population.

The African Union’s goal is to produce 60% of all vaccines administered in Africa locally by 2040, up from the current 1%, and several such plants are being set up.

“If Aspen doesn’t get production, what chance is there for any of the other initiatives?” Nicolaou said.

 

Additional report by Reuters

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