South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare may be forced to shut down its production of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose COVID-19 vaccines if African countries do not place orders, according to John Nkengasong, the director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Speaking at a press briefing Thursday, Nkengasong said Aspen Pharmacare had not received any orders since the company signed initial terms for a licensing deal with Johnson & Johnson late last year.
“The risk is very, very high that that company may actually stop producing the Johnson & Johnson vaccines,” he said. “We cannot and must not allow that to happen.”
Why it matters: Stavros Nicolaou, group senior executive of strategic trade development at Aspen Pharmacare, in December described Johnson & Johnson’s decision to progress to advanced stages of a licensing agreement with Aspen as a “game changer” for Africa, adding that the deal would mean that Africa could have its first COVID-19 vaccine and be able to determine the availability, allocation, and distribution of doses.
Under the agreement, Aspen will manufacture Aspenovax — a COVID-19 vaccine with the drugmaker’s branding for sale in Africa — from drug substance supplied by Johnson & Johnson.
What’s next: Nkengasong said an increase in the supply of free COVID-19 vaccine doses — donated by high-income countries — had closed the access gap that Aspen was meant to fill.
He added that deliberate action is needed to safeguard Africa’s vaccine-manufacturing industry. Nkengasong called on initiatives such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the international cooperative program COVAX; the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator launched by the World Health Organization and its partners; and others to support the continent in buying vaccines produced by Aspen to avoid a situation in which collective efforts to strengthen Africa’s health security are undermined.
“We have to be very deliberate that we want to support African manufacturing,” he said. “Locally manufacturing vaccines is an indisputable pathway to guaranteeing our collective or global health security.”
About the author
Paul Adepojupauladepoju
Paul Adepoju is a Nigeria-based Devex Contributing Reporter, academic, and author. He covers health and tech in Africa for leading local and international media outlets including CNN, Quartz, and The Guardian. He's also the founder of healthnews.africa. He is completing a doctorate in cell biology and genetics and holds several reporting awards in health and tech.
