The World Health Organization is creating a global training center to help poorer countries make vaccines, antibodies and cancer treatments using the same messenger RNA technology that has been used succesfully in COVID-19 vaccines.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press briefing in Geneva on Wednesday siad the new hub will be in South Korea and will use mRNA technology being devceloped by WHO and its partners in South Africa, where scientists are trying to recreate Moderna’s COVID-19 vacine, an effort taking place without Moderna’s help.
It’s the first time that the WHO has supported such unortuhodox efforts to reverse-engineer a commercially-sold vaccine, overcoming the pharmaceutical industry prioritizing rich countries over poor in both sales and manufacturing.
Both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, who made the two authorized mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, have refused to share their recipe or technological methods with WHO and its partners.
According to WHO, the shared tech will hopefully result in not only coronavirus vaccines, but also antibodies, insulin, and treatments for diseases including malaria and cancer.
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, WHO’s chief scientist, estimated that the attempt to recreate the Moderna vaccine would probably take until late next year or even 2024 to yielf any usable shots, but said the timeline could be much shorter with the help of the manufacturer.
The disparity in acccess to coronavirus vaccines is massive and global. Africa produces just 1% of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines and only about 11% of its population is immunized. However, a European nation like Portugal has had more than 84% of its population fully vaccination, with almost 60% receiving a booster shot.
The WHO said last week that Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia, would receive the knowledge and methods to make mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. On Wednedsday, Tedros said that Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Serbia, and Vietnam would now receive support from the South African hub.
Scientists attempting to make Moderna’s vaccine say there is more information about that shot in the public domain and it’s believed to be slightly easier to manufacture than the one made by Pfizer-BioNTech.