In Rwanda, the first BioNTainer, a mobile laboratory from the German group BioNTech, arrived on Monday March 13 at Kigali airport. This is an ongoing project since October 2021, of which Rwanda is the first beneficiary country and which should also be launched in Senegal and South Africa. This project is intended to increase the production of vaccines directly on the African continent.
With our correspondent in Kigali, Lucie Mouillaud
Three years to the day after the first case of Covid-19 detected in Rwanda, it is a symbolic date, according to the director of operations of BioNTech, Dr Sierk Poetting, for the arrival in Kigali of the first vaccine production laboratory. from the country. A mobile laboratory with, eventually, a production capacity of 50 to 100 million doses per year.
” A BioNtainer is six containers put together and we need two BioNtainers. One for the production of pharmaceutical substances and the other for pharmaceutical products. The substances are the ingredients. Vaccine and pharmaceutical is the encapsulation of vaccines so that they can be injected says Dr. Sierk Poetting.
The first productions will concern messenger RNA vaccines against Covid-19, but the German laboratory hopes to develop new products using this technology, in particular against malaria and tuberculosis, for the moment still in the test phase.
” Vaccine consumption in Africa is 99% made up of vaccines produced elsewhere. The African Union is pushing to reduce this percentage, at least by half, in the next twenty years, but this project is a step forward which shows that we can move forward more quickly. We are already imagining new partnerships like this, with a view to reducing the distance between disinfection places and where the solutions are. “, underlines Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana, Minister of Health of Rwanda.
Next step : the completion, expected by the end of the year, of the construction of the site where the BioNtainers will be stored. For the first production of Rwandan vaccines, it will then be necessary to wait between twelve and eighteen months.
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