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GENEVA (AP) — world Health Organization It is establishing a global education center to help poorer countries make vaccines, antibodies and cancer treatments using messenger RNA technology, which has been successfully used to make COVID-19 vaccines.
At a press conference in Geneva on Wednesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the new center will be in South Korea and will share the mRNA technology developed by it. WHO and partners in South Africa, where scientists are working to recreate the COVID-19 vaccine made by Moderna Inc. It happens without effort modern‘s help.
“Vaccines have helped change the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this scientific victory has been undermined by massive inequalities in access to these life-saving tools,” Tedros said. Said.
this is the first time WHO By supporting such unorthodox efforts to reverse engineer a commercially available vaccine, he has taken a tour around the pharmaceutical industry, which has largely prioritized supplying poor countries to rich countries in both sales and production.
both modern and Pfizer-BioNTech, makers of two authoritative mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, declined to share their vaccine prescriptions or technology information. WHO and its partners.
WHO He said the shared technology would not only result in coronavirus vaccines, but would also be useful in antibodies, insulin and treatments for diseases including malaria and cancer.
WHO‘s chief scientist, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the attempt to recreate modern‘s vaccine likely won’t deliver any usable vaccines until late next year, or even 2024, but the timeline could be shortened significantly if the manufacturer agrees to help, he said.
The global inequality in access to COVID-19 vaccines is enormous. Africa currently produces only 1% of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines, and only about 11% of its population is vaccinated. In contrast, a European country like Portugal had 84% of its population fully vaccinated, and more than 59% of its population also vaccinated booster.
Last week, WHO Six African countries – Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia – will take the knowledge and technological know-how to make mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, he said. Tedros said Wednesday that five more countries will receive support from their South African headquarters: Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Serbia and Vietnam.
Earlier this year, the Cape Town company is trying to copy Moderna Inc.The COVID-19 vaccine said it has successfully made a candidate vaccine that will soon begin laboratory testing.
Scientists are trying to modern‘s vaccine says there is more information about this shot in the public domain, and it is believed to be somewhat easier to manufacture than that made by. Pfizer-BioNTech.
Zain Rizvi, research director for the Public Citizen advocacy group, welcomed the news, saying: WHO‘s efforts will address the massive global demand for mRNA vaccines, which have proven to be arguably the most effective in curbing COVID-19.
“(WHO) provides a stark contrast to their failure. modern and Pfizer“They’re the world’s largest accumulating technology,” Rizvi said. “WHO charts a more open and transparent alternative route. But he still needs help.”
Rizvi urged the Biden administration to pressure international pharmaceutical companies in particular to share their COVID-19 vaccine recipes and know-how.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
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