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Africa needs to make own vaccines but hurdles are high, experts say (Tue, 07 Dec 2021)
By Clement Uwiringiyimana KIGALI (Reuters) – Africa needs to make its own vaccines to avoid a repeat of its supply problems in the COVID-19 pandemic but faces big obstacles in turning itself from a pharmaceutical testing ground into a place where vaccines are created, experts said on Tuesday. The Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM) has set as a target that 60% of the continent’s routine vaccine needs, or between 1.4 and 1.7 billion doses yearly, should be met by local manufacturing by 2040, up from about 1% now. Experts meeting at a PAVM conference in Rwanda said the pandemic had shown Africa urgently needed to tackle its dependence on imported vaccines. But they outlined daunting obstacles, from brain drain to power shortages. Martin Friede, coordinator of the World Health Organisation Initiative for Vaccine Research, said Africa had produced many scientific researchers but not a workforce capable of designing and making vaccines. He urged the continent’s political and scientific leaders to focus on changing that skillset, drawing a contrast with Africa’s customary role in pharmaceuticals. “Right now Africa is a test tube for many pharmaceutical companies. This is where we bring products to test them,” he said. Charles Gore, head of the United Nations-backed Medicines Patent Pool which seeks to boost drugmaking in developing countries, said seeking licences from pharmaceutical firms elsewhere was not a sustainable solution for Africa as it had few incentives to offer those firms. “Simply having the development done in the developed world and always transferring it is not an answer to this,” he said. HIGH COSTS Gore also cautioned against launching too many separate initiatives across the continent that would risk yielding only “white elephants”, instead urging governments, companies and research hubs to collaborate to create complementary capacities. Speakers from large drugmakers and from bodies that provide funding stressed the high costs of research, development and production, urging African countries to pool demand in order to incentivise investors with scale and long-term visibility. “The higher volumes and consistent long-term contracting are critical to make this work,” said Patrick van der Loo, Pfizer’s regional president for Africa and the Middle East. He cited water shortages in South Africa that affected its local partner the Biovac Institute, which has a “fill and finish” deal https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/south-africas-biovac-start-making-pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine-early-2022-2021-12-06 to make the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine, as an example of Africa’s crippling infrastructure problems. He mentioned a lack of regulatory capacity as an obstacle, saying only two national regulators in Africa had achieved WHO maturity level three, a prerequisite to vetting local vaccines. The PAVM, which is backed by the African Union and brings together experts from across the continent, is working on a wide-ranging strategy to address the various challenges. (Reporting by Clement Uwiringiyimana, writing by Estelle Shirbon, Editing by William Maclean) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
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EU may face shortage of key materials for diagnostics, cancer treatments (Tue, 07 Dec 2021)
By Francesco Guarascio BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union may face a shortage of radioactive isotopes key to diagnosing a range of diseases and treating cancer, according to officials and documents. The EU is the world’s biggest producer of Molybdenum-99, a radio isotope used in 80% of all nuclear medicines procedures globally, including imaging scans to detect heart diseases and therapies to destroy cancer cells, EU data show. But the production of Molybdenum-99 is mostly reliant on nuclear reactors located in the Netherlands and Belgium, which are getting old. “Without replacing the currently ageing European production infrastructure, the EU will be dependant on foreign supplies,” said Michael Stibbe, Dutch Deputy Permanent Representative during a public session of a meeting of EU health ministers in Brussels. “This could potentially cause serious radioisotopes’ shortages and jeopardise access to vital treatments for all European citizens,” he added, urging the EU to help fund the transition to new reactors. Representatives from other EU countries, including Germany and Belgium, supported the Dutch call. “As European research reactors approach their ‘end of life’, uncertainty about the long-term continuous supply of radioisotopes may generate instability benefiting external competitors able to seize the opportunity,” said a European Commission document. The expected drop in EU production is compounded by the rapid increase in demand for radioisotopes, the Dutch representative said. “Inadequacies in this area are demonstrated also by the fact that prices of these isotopes have gone up by 300% in certain cases,” said the chair of the meeting, Slovenia’s health minister Janez Poklukar. Late in October, the European Commission also warned EU health experts of a possible shortage next year of Iodine-131, another radioisotope crucial for diagnostics and treatments of several conditions, according to the minutes of the meeting. The Commission did not reply to Reuters’ request for a comment on the matter. (Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; Editing by Mark Potter) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
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Another transgender athlete is causing an uproar (Tue, 07 Dec 2021)
Another transgender athlete is causing an uproar VERBATIM: Lia Thomas is breaking a lot of women’s swimming records for the University of Pennsylvania. In fact, Thomas beat the rest of the field by nearly seven seconds in the 200 yard freestyle at a recent meet — something that’s virtually unheard of at the collegiate level. The problem? Lia Thomas is actually a man and a lot of her actual female competitors are crying foul. Critics are pointing out that Thomas competed as a male for several years and was just average. Michael Harrington, SRN News.   Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
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SRN Hourly News 12-07-21 – 07:00 AM CST (Tue, 07 Dec 2021)
Top News Stories Dec 07, 2021 – 07:00 AM CST Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
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