Your Excellency Minister Nzimande,
Your Excellency Minister Phaahla,
Your Excellency Minister Tvinnereim,
Deputy Executive Director Seychell,
Your Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
A heartfelt thank you to the South Africa Consortium - Afrigen, Biovac, the South Africa Medical Research Council and the Government of South Africa - for hosting this very important event.
I visited the mRNA hub 13 months ago, and I am glad to know of the remarkable progress since then.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted that one of our most important strategies for addressing global health emergencies is to increase the capacity of all regions to produce medical countermeasures, such as vaccines and therapeutics.
That is why WHO is supporting this multilateral effort on the mRNA technology transfer programme.
There are four key barriers to vaccine manufacturing in low-and-middle-income countries.
First: access to know how;
Second: a local skilled workforce;
Third: a national regulatory authority to ensure quality and safety;
And fourth: sustainable investments and maintenance costs, along with access to a reliable market of sufficient size.
Countries have a crucial role to play in supporting local manufacturing, particularly at the early stages.
The short-term cost savings from procuring cheaper imported vaccines should be balanced against the value of supporting domestic production capacity that will be critical to national health security.
In light of these factors, there is need for a coherent regional strategy for mRNA vaccine production, because it would not be sustainable for each nation to build these facilities.
There is also a need for regional infrastructure planning, including how these vaccines will be procured during emergencies.
Also needed is a regional plan for supply chain ingredients, as some countries produce reagents, vials and other important components.
All of this underscores the need for coordination, collaboration and coherence at the national, regional and global levels.
WHO believes that the mRNA Technology Transfer Programme holds huge promise, not just for increasing access to vaccines against COVID-19 but also for other diseases, including HIV, tuberculosis, as well as other diseases affecting lower- and middle-income countries for which there are either no vaccines or the vaccines are insufficient.
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For this reason, WHO is establishing an mRNA research and development network to provide a collaborative platform to expand mRNA vaccine pipelines, accelerate product development and access to know-how.
I thank the South African Consortium and the programme partners, and the funders for their support, and all the experts who contributed to the success of this landmark programme.
Again, I am impressed by the progress that was made. Last year, I was with the Minister of Development of Belgium, and this year it was with Minister Tvinnereim.
The support from donors is very important. I would like to thank you for the support you have so far provided. Considering the ambition that we have now, I think continued support, even bigger support will be necessary.
I hope you continue to support this precious project that will bring a paradigm shift in addressing the serious problem we faced, the equity problem during the pandemic, so it is not repeated again.
I thank you.
