Messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA) technology is a platform that has been used to rapidly develop life-saving COVID-19 vaccines such as the Pfizer vaccine.
Fortunately, Kenya has just launched a National Institute of Public Health in response to the risk of future epidemics.
One key inadvertent benefit of the otherwise devastating COVID-19 pandemic has been its clarion call to global leaders to deeply examine and ameliorate health system gaps and inequalities.
The obvious deficiencies that have been brought to the fore include poor epidemic intelligence systems and coordinated responses; especially in emerging countries. However, collaborative efforts are beginning to overturn this tragedy.
One such initiative is last week’s announcement by World Health Organization Director-General, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus. He announced that Kenya; among Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia; would be the first six African countries to benefit from an mRNA technology transfer program.
Messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA) technology is a platform that has been used to rapidly develop life-saving COVID-19 vaccines such as the Pfizer vaccine and that also has the potential of being applied in the development of Malaria, Tuberculosis and HIV vaccines.
These are infectious diseases that have been known to heavily burden sub-Saharan Africa yet vaccine inequity continues to exist wherein most vaccines have been developed and utilized by developed countries.
To bolster this announcement, the German Pharma giant, BioNTech unveiled mobile vaccine production laboratories for shipping to Africa.
These modular units christened “Biontainers” are innovatively domiciled in shipping containers and look to increase local vaccine production capacity.
Core to the creativity of these units is that they are a product of a simplicity approach. They reduce the complexity of vaccine production into its core elements that can be housed in a shipping container.
Whereas these advances are a beneficial shot in the arm for African countries, a lot of careful planning needs to occur in order to actualize this idea. Previously, such noble initiatives have ended in oblivion due to a lack of accompanying skills training.
Fortunately, Kenya has just launched a National Institute of Public Health in response to the risk of future epidemics. It would be prudent to consider allocating the responsibility of sustaining the mRNA technology to the institute as part of its core mandates.
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