The European Investment Bank announced last week that it would provide a €75 million (over $80 million) loan to the Institut Pasteur de Dakar, or IPD, in Senegal. With the injection of funding, the institute plans to fast track operationalization of one of its new vaccine manufacturing facilities.
This new manufacturing facility is one of a series of vaccine manufacturing projects launched across Africa and aimed at enhancing health security on the continent by lessening dependence on companies abroad to supply vaccines. These projects came to fruition during the pandemic, as African nations experienced widespread inequitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.
“It is essential to create decentralised vaccine manufacturing capacity to address this imbalance and ultimately build a safer and healthier world,” wrote Dr. Amadou Alpha Sall, director of IPD, in a press release.