Six African countries to receive mRNA vaccine technology in WHO project

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that six African countries - Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia - would be the first on the continent to receive the technology needed to produce mRNA vaccines.

The technology transfer project, launched last year, aims to help low- and middle-income countries manufacture mRNA vaccines at scale and according to international standards. mRNA is the advanced technology used by companies like Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna for their COVID-19 shots.

The WHO established its global mRNA technology transfer hub after vaccine hoarding by wealthy countries and companies prioritising sales to governments that could pay the highest price meant low- and middle-income countries were pushed to the back of the queue for COVID-19 vaccines.