Morocco will begin making Sinopharm vaccines late December in a bid to reach self-sufficiency and help supply vaccines to African nations, where vaccination rates remain far below the global average.
The Moroccan pharmaceutical Sothema in charge of manufacturing the Sinopharm jabs has completed procedures needed to launch production in its 60,000 square meter plant in Bouskoura, Casablanca, a source from within the scientific committee told Hespress EN.
Initial production is expected to cover five million doses a month of China’s Sinopharm.
The Moroccan pharmaceutical acquired production rights after a $500 million deal with a Chinese pharmaceutical overseen by King Mohammed VI last July.
My country first
Vaccine sovereignty became a major hot topic as the pandemic set off an each-country-for-itself mindset that largely drove Africa out of the vaccine race.
More than 80% of Africa’s population have not yet been given a single dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, almost two years after covid vaccines became available, according to data collected by online scientific publication Our World in Data.
“Every day, there are six times more boosters administered globally than primary doses in low-income countries […] this is a scandal that must stop now,” World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
The WHO previously set a goal of vaccinating 40 percent of the population of every country by the end of the year, but more than 100 countries are currently short of the target.
Critics say wealthy nations that are obstructing negotiations on a waiver of intellectual property rights first put forward to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in October 2020 and supported by a large number of African, Asian, and Latin American countries.
The waiver would enable nations to not grant or enforce patents or other IP obligations on copyright, and freely use information related to Covid-19 products and technologies.
For countries like Morocco, where Covid-19 vaccine trials have been performed, the patent obliges national drug regulators to protect data registered during trials from use while the country seeks its own marketing authorization to manufacture the covid jab, which further slows down vaccine availability.
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