Covid-19 in Senegal: agreement signed for the creation of a vaccine manufacturing plant

Senegal is preparing to create its own anti-covid vaccine manufacturing plant.

© AP / Leo Correa

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

Towards the production of anti-Covid-19 vaccines in Senegal.

An agreement was signed on Friday July 9 with several partners, European countries, the World Bank and the United States, for the financing of the first phase of the project.

A factory which should start production in 2022, when Africa now imports 99% of its vaccine needs.

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With our correspondent in Dakar,

Charlotte Idrac

The factory is to emerge from the ground in the new town of Diamniadio and eventually produce 300 million doses per year.

First of all anti-Covid-19 vaccines - the choice has yet to be defined - then other types of vaccines against endemic diseases.

The project was implemented by the Institut Pasteur in Dakar, which already produces the vaccine against yellow fever.

Its general administrator, Doctor Amadou Sall, speaks of a “

 historic

 ”

day

.

In 2022, our goal is to start with aseptic filling to continue, later, with the manufacture of" vaccine pulp "

 ", specifies Amadou Sall.

The total estimated cost of the project is 200 million euros.

According to the Minister of the Economy Amadou Hott, 14 million, in the form of donations, have already been mobilized.

The next phases of funding have yet to be completed.

Objective: to reduce the continent's dependence on the outside world.

Less than 2% of Africans fully vaccinated

“ 

Senegal will become a producer and also an exporter of anti-Covid vaccines around a platform that will also allow us to produce other vaccines that Senegal and Africa will need to really achieve self-sufficiency or pharmaceutical sovereignty, sovereignty sanitary

 ”, underlines Amadou Hott.

An agreement signed while Senegal like other countries on the continent are facing a peak in contamination and a shortage of doses.

According to the WHO, less than 2% of Africans are fully vaccinated.

To read also: Covid-19: Senegal aims to produce its own vaccines

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  • Senegal

  • Coronavirus

  • Vaccines