The Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal is one of a series of vaccine manufacturing projects launched across Africa in hopes of making the continent less dependent on vaccine shipments from abroad. As the facility prepares to become operational, we take a look at what exactly it will do.
Today we’re also sharing the results of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest study of COVID-19 among pregnant women, and checking in on Women Deliver’s progress toward radical change.
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The Pasteur Institute’s new manufacturing facility — called the Manufacturing in Africa for Disease Immunisation and Building Autonomy, or MADIBA — could start producing COVID-19 vaccine doses by the end of the year. When it reaches full capacity, the facility is expected to churn out 300 million doses annually, and those won’t all be for COVID-19.
My colleague Sara Jerving has an in-depth look at this pioneering effort to let the African continent out of vaccine dependence and strengthen its ability to respond to emerging health threats.
Here are some of the key takeaways from her reporting:
While COVID-19 vaccines will likely be the first order of business — produced through the “fill and finish” approach — the new facility will eventually crank out essential childhood vaccines for diseases such as measles, rubella, and polio. “It also intends to prepare for what the institute calls ‘Disease X’ — a future unknown, or reemerging, pathogen with outbreak potential,” Sara writes.
In addition to the standard vials, this facility will produce vaccines in pouches of 200 doses each that can be kept refrigerated for up to six days.
The facility will be built of converted shipping containers that house different types of pharmaceutical modules for different production purposes that can be swapped in and out as the technology and needs evolve. It allows the institute to build a “very, very bespoke facility,” says Dr. Joe Fitchett, the institute’s senior adviser for biotechnology.
Read: Senegal nears completion of 'bespoke' vaccine manufacturing facility (PRO)
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“Just hearing about those moms who came in distress, died and lost their baby from COVID. It's just heartbreaking when you think that could have been prevented.”
— Jean Nachega, associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public HealthThe largest study of its kind so far in sub-Saharan Africa found that pregnant women who were hospitalized with COVID-19 had double the risk of death compared to nonpregnant women with similarly severe cases, and five times that of pregnant women without the disease.
Read: Study in African nations finds COVID-19 increased death in pregnancy
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Maliha Khan and Kathleen Sherwin of Women Deliver are reflecting on the organization’s effort to confront “hard truths.”
They write: “In June 2020, as people around the world rose up to challenge racial injustice in all its forms, including within our global development sector, Women Deliver was confronted by hard truths. We had failed to embody the very values that are foundational to who we are.
“In marking the passing of the baton, two years later, and as we head into a new chapter of our ongoing journey to meaningfully transform into an anti-racist organization, we, Women Deliver’s past and future leaders, want to recognize the emotional labor that has gone into this process, both on the part of those who called on us to radically change, and those who worked with us to make that change happen.”
Opinion: Rebuilding Women Deliver — lessons from our journey
Reporting for Devex, Sam Mednick exposes the alarming situation in Burkina Faso, where violence is preventing people from accessing health care and threatening food security.
Sam writes: “When Devex visited hospitals in the North and Sahel regions, and in the capital, Ouagadougou, doctors said the number of severely malnourished children had doubled from two years ago and there was concern there weren’t enough resources to care for them. In one hospital in the capital, malnourished babies have been put in the same room as other sick children because there isn’t enough space to separate them.”
Read: Jihadi violence is pushing more people to starvation in Burkina Faso
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It’s not enough for foundations to fund climate change if they are not funding climate justice. That’s the message from a new funding guide released by Candid and Ariadne on Wednesday.
Open Society Foundations and the Bezos Earth Fund have both made that emphasis explicit, Stephanie Beasley reports. Bezos Earth Fund has pledged $443 million to environmental and climate justice groups and recently added an adviser for “resilience and communities” to its senior leadership. Last year, OSF hired its first climate justice director, tasked with integrating climate justice into the organization’s human rights and democracy-building work.
Climate justice: More foundations should adopt strategy, report says
COP 26 President Alok Sharma may be in the running as the next head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change to replace Patricia Espinosa, who is stepping down next month. [The Guardian]
A group of investors wrote to the U.N. Wednesday urging the global body to create a roadmap to make agriculture sustainable, as the sector currently contributes to a third of greenhouse gas emissions. [Reuters]
The World Bank has agreed to fund $900 million in development projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo. [Reuters]
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