At a press briefing in Geneva on Wednesday, WHO
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the new hub will be in South
Korea and will share mRNA technology being developed by WHO and partners in
South Africa, where scientists are working to recreate the COVID-19 vaccine
made by Moderna Inc. That effort is taking place without Moderna’s help.
“Vaccines have helped to change the course of the COVID-19
pandemic but this scientific triumph has been undermined by vast inequities in
access to these life-saving tools,” Tedros said.
It’s the first time that WHO has supported such unorthodox
efforts to reverse-engineer a commercially-sold vaccine, making an end run
around the pharmaceutical industry, which has largely prioritized supplying
rich countries over poor in both sales and manufacturing.
Both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, makers of the two
authorized mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, have declined to share their vaccine recipe
or technological know-how with WHO and its partners.
WHO said the shared technology would hopefully result not
only in coronavirus vaccines, but would also be useful in making antibodies,
insulin and treatments for diseases including malaria and cancer.
WHO’s chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan estimated that
the attempt to recreate Moderna’s vaccine would probably not yield any usable
shots until late next year or even 2024, but said that timeline could be
shortened considerably if the manufacturer agreed to help.
The global disparity in access to COVID-19 vaccines is
enormous. Africa currently produces just 1% of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines
and only about 11% of its population is immunized. In contrast, a European
nation like Portugal has had 84% of its population fully vaccinated, and over
59% of its people have also had a booster shot.
Last week, WHO said six African countries — Egypt, Kenya,
Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia — would receive the knowledge and
technological know-how to make mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Tedros said Wednesday
that five more countries would now receive support from the South Africa hub:
Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Serbia and Vietnam.
Earlier this year, the Cape Town company attempting to
replicate Moderna Inc.’s COVID-19 shot said it had successfully made a
candidate vaccine that will soon start laboratory testing.
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.
Zain Rizvi, research director at the advocacy group Public
Citizen, welcomed the news, saying WHO’s efforts will address the huge global
demand for mRNA vaccines, which have proven to be arguably the most effective
at curbing COVID-19.
“(WHO) provides a stark contrast to the failures of Moderna
and Pfizer’s of the world who have largely hoarded the technology,” Rizvi said.
“WHO is charting an alternative course that is more open and transparent. But
it still needs help.”
Rizvi called for the Biden administration in particular to
pressure international pharmaceutical companies to share their COVID-19 vaccine
recipes and know-how. -AP
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