The African Development Bank Group has finalised a loan of up to $15 million to the Biologicals and Vaccines Institute of South Africa Ltd (Biovac) to support a new multi-vaccine manufacturing facility in Cape Town that will significantly expand Africa’s domestic capacity to produce vaccines.
The financing forms part of an expansion programme that will raise Biovac’s total annual manufacturing capacity up to 500 million doses. Once complete, Biovac is expected to become Africa’s first end-to-end producer of oral cholera vaccine and South Africa’s first locally produced inactivated polio vaccine, and the first on the continent to produce inactivated polio vaccine through technology-transfer partnerships with Sanofi, the International Vaccine Institute, Biological E Limited, EuBiologics, and Bharat Biotech. For more than two decades, Biovac has been South Africa’s primary vaccine supplier,
Africa currently imports more than 99 percent of the vaccines it uses, even though the continent carries a disproportionate share of the world’s vaccine-preventable disease burden. In response, the African Union aims to produce 60 percent of the continent’s vaccines locally by 2040. Beyond vaccines, the project is projected to create around 340 full-time jobs, with an estimated 43 percent of these roles going to women and 30 percent going to youths. Biovac, which already employs more than 300 staff — half of them women — will also expand training in vaccine manufacturing, quality control, and regulatory science in partnership with local universities and other regional training institutions.
“This investment in Biovac is about much more than expanding vaccine production capacity. It is about building Africa’s health sovereignty, strengthening regional value chains, and creating industrial capabilities that will enable the continent to respond more effectively to future health emergencies,” said Solomon Quaynor, the Bank Group’s Vice President for Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialisation. “By supporting Africa’s first end-to-end oral cholera vaccine manufacturing facility and the continent’s first local production of inactivated polio vaccine, we are helping transform Africa from a consumer of imported vaccines into a producer of critical health solutions.”
“We welcome the African Development Bank as a partner in this landmark project and are proud that an institution so central to Africa’s development sees in Biovac the same opportunity we see, a chance to fundamentally shift the continent’s relationship with its own health security,” said Biovac Chief Executive Officer Morena Makhoana. “The project will shift the narrative from majority-imported vaccines to majority-exported vaccines. This is part of changing that reality permanently. This is what Africa’s health sovereignty looks like in practice, and we are honoured to be building it.”
The Bank Group’s support for Biovac aligns with its broader commitment to developing Africa’s pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturing ecosystem, creating quality jobs, fostering innovation, and advancing African Union targets.
“This project allows one of Africa’s most experienced manufacturers to scale up exactly where the need is greatest: vaccines that protect children from cholera, polio, pneumonia and meningitis,” said Kennedy Mbekeani, the Bank Group’s Director General for Southern Africa, and Country Manager for South Africa.
The expansion project is also designed to plug directly into the continent’s emerging vaccine-financing architecture, including Gavi’s African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA), a $1.2 billion mechanism that rewards African manufacturers with milestone payments once they reach WHO prequalification, plus a per-dose top-up on vaccines supplied through UNICEF tenders.
Biovac’s new facility is expected to be completed by 2028 and will initially produce vaccines for cholera (oral) and subsequently for polio (IPV), pneumonia (PCV), and meningitis (MenX).
The Bank joins a syndicate of development finance institutions backing the project. The syndicate is led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and supported by a long-term quasi-equity facility from the Human Development Accelerator (HDX) programme, a European Union-backed initiative implemented by the European Investment Bank in partnership with the Gates Foundation. The package is complemented by grant funding and support from other global health partners for technology transfers that will bring new vaccines into Biovac’s portfolio.
Biovac is a South African biopharmaceutical company established in 2003 in partnership with the South African government to develop local vaccine manufacturing capability. Based in Cape Town, it currently manufactures and supplies much-needed routine paediatric vaccines and has delivered more than 450 million vaccine doses to countries across Southern Africa, including COVID-19 vaccines.
Africa Fact: The Songhai Empire of 16th century West Africa had a government position called Minister for Etiquette and Protocol.
Africa Fact: The mediaeval Nigerian city of Benin was built to “a scale comparable with the Great Wall of China”. There was a vast system of defensive walling totalling 10,000 miles in all. Even before the full extent of the city walling had become apparent the Guinness Book of Records carried an entry in the 1974 edition that described the city as: “The largest earthworks in the world carried out prior to the mechanical era.”
Sun Lemon
Fun South African Fact: There are 11 official languages, each with equal status, in South Africa
Truth
Fun South African Fact: South Africa’s drinking water is rated 3rd best in the world for being “safe and ready to drink”.