New York, Europe Brief News. The WHO said it has set up a hub in South Korea to train low-income countries to produce mRNA vaccines.
The UN agency also declared that it is expanding its COVID-19 vaccine project to a further five nations.
The new hub will share mRNA technology developed by the WHO and partners in South Africa. Scientists have been working to recreate the COVID-19 vaccine made by Moderna.
However, that effort is taking place without Moderna’s help.
“Vaccines have helped to change the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. But this scientific triumph undermined by vast inequities in access to these life-saving tools,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference on Wednesday.
“Currently, bio-manufacturing training facilities are located mainly in high-income countries … putting them out of reach for many lower-income countries,” he said.
The new hub outside Seoul will also provide workforce training to all countries wishing to produce products. The products include vaccines, insulin, monoclonal antibodies, Tedros said.
Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia will be the first countries on the African continent to receive the technology needed to produce the vaccines.
mRNA vaccines have proved crucial to the fight against COVID-19, the head of the UN health agency further said last week.
The announcement was made at a ceremony hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Council, France and South Africa and also with the respective Presidents of each in attendance.
