Africa must develop its vaccines.

By Christopher Bendana

Kampala

Africa must develop its vaccines.

Africa has to develop its vaccines if it is to mitigate the impact of infectious diseases on the continent.

Mazyanga Lucy Mazaba, the Eastern Africa regional director of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) told scientists attending a research medical dissemination conference recently at Speke Resort in Kampala that experience through the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in late 2014 and the COVID-19 experience in 2021 had woken them out.

 “We anticipate more outbreaks, and we have seen a lack of response during previous outbreaks, let’s manufacture vaccines on the continent. Vaccine development is essential not only for the Africa market but for everyone.” she said while delivering a keynote speech , ‘Development of Vaccines for Africa in Africa.’

This was during the Inaugural MRC/ UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit and Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) Research Dissemination Conference, which ran from 11 – 13 March at Speke Resort, Munyonyo, Kampala, Uganda.

The experience of COVID is vivid as governments in Africa and much of the Global South looked on and waited for vaccines from the rich Global North but were ignored. The Global North and China went on vaccinating their populations with little regard for those in the South who manufactured none.

Mazaba revealed that there were currently 25 active vaccine programs on the continent at different levels of development as per the Agency’s 2024 survey.  Five of these already have commercial-scale manufacturing facilities with technology transfer agreements signed or underway. Another five commercial-scale manufacturing facilities are yet to sign technology transfer agreements. The other 15 are in the early stages of development.

Uganda’s Role in Vaccine Innovation

Sheila Balinda, a molecular virologist at MRC/UVRI & LSHTM presented a paper, Developing of Vaccines for Africa in Africa –Uganda context after Mazaba’s presentation.

She highlighted Uganda’s scientific abilities to develop vaccines beyond large-scale manufacturing (fill and finish) but from scratch, research and development for several platforms including Adenovector, Inactivated, and mRNA/SaRNA vaccine platforms.

Currently, UVRI and MRC have preclinical studies ongoing for COVID-19, Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever, and Rift Valley fever vaccines.

She revealed that much of this work emanated from the Presidential Scientific Initiative on Epidemics (PRESIDE) established during COVID-19.

Other collaborative Immunological studies are ongoing for Ebola Sudan and Mpox.

MRC is also currently studying the community’s perception of locally developed drugs in Masaka district. 

Funding Science for Africa’s Future

Thomas Kariuki, the chief executive officer at the Science for Africa Foundation, a research funding organization based in Nairobi city, Kenya argued researchers to engage strategically with financial decision-makers.

“Lobby economists in the Budget Office and Ministries of Finance,” he advised. “They control the allocation of research funds. If Africa dedicates just one percent of its $2 trillion GDP to research, we can sustain our own innovations.”

Jane Ruth Aceng Uganda’s health minister who opened the conference called for HIV/Aids prevention as the country races for the 2030 target of halting HIV status as a public health threat. This as HIV preventive measures including research face dwindling donor funding. She cautioned against complacency, stating,

“Prevent, prevent, move away from the perception that if I get HIV I will get treatment. Let’s not increase the numbers. Rates of new infections must come down” she said.

The are 1.4 million Ugandans living with HIV according to the Uganda Aids Commission 2022 Fact Sheet. This is about 5.5% of the adult population. Infection rates of girls between 15-24 were three times higher than that of boys of the same age.

Ethical Considerations in Research

Winnie Badanga Nazziwa, head of the Research Compliance and Quality Assurance Unit at the Uganda National Council of Science and Technology presenting on Community Engagement –Key Wins, Challenges and Opportunities for Research said the research funding freeze without consulting, and giving clear reasons for the halting to research committees and research regulatory bodies is an ethical breach. The recipient research institutes must also be given enough time to look for alternative funding opportunities is an ethical breach.

Researchers were recently caught off-guard with limited alternative funding when United States President Donald Trump froze much of USAID funding. The freeze affected mainly health and agriculture research in much of the Global South including HIV research in Uganda.  

Emmanuel Katabazi, a priest, and chairman of the MRC Uganda Unit Masaka Community Advisory Board implored researchers to respect the communities they work in if community engagement as a research component was to make an impact.

The dissemination workshop underscored the positive role of collaborative research in handling global diseases.  Such projects include the PrEPvacc trial on HIV that did research in Eastern and Southern Africa, and International Aids Vaccines Initiatives (IAVI) Accelerate the Development of Vaccines and New Technologies to Combat the Aids Epidemic (ADANCE) that had African and Indian researchers.

With scientists from Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Malawi, and the United Kingdom in attendance, discussions covered diverse topics ranging from research funding strategies to community engagement and research ethics.

The consensus was clear: Africa has the expertise and capacity to develop its own vaccines and must prioritize local solutions to global health threats.