PHARMA
The South African vaccine hub taking on big pharma In September, Global Justice Now organised a parliamentary and media delegation to a ground-breaking vaccine project in Cape Town, TIM BIERLEY reports. of Global Justice Now supporters, who have In June 2021, at the height of Covid-19 vaccine got right behind this project of international inequality around the world, the WHO backed solidarity. a radical project which aims to break the stranglehold that big pharma corporations enjoy over the distribution of life-saving vaccines. The mRNA Stoffel s © Alfo nso Andrew Technology Transfer Hub, as it is known, brings together a group of scientists and manufacturers to work out how mRNA technology works, share that knowledge with others, particularly in Africa, and set up production outside the hands of big pharma. Already the hub has managed to successfully reverse engineer Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine and its scientists are now working on turning their successful experiments into vaccine production. Even more importantly, they have started sharing their breakthrough with scientists in other countries. During a pandemic when global north governments have pursued vaccine nationalism and pharma companies have exploited the crisis to make windfall profits, this project emerging in South Africa has shown that global south countries can build something better. The hub, based at a company called Afrigen in Cape Town, aims to prove that we don’t have to hand our medical needs over to big business to make vast amounts of money for their shareholders by monopolising know-how. Rather, we can build a collaborative model, where we freely share knowledge and distribute research and production around the world. The trip was only possible thanks to the incredible generosity
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We and our partners in the global south are working to make sure the hub has strong political backing, especially as the big pharmaceutical corporations are already lobbying against it. Up to now, the British government has consistently cosied up to big pharma, fiercely opposing the waiver of intellectual property rules on Covid-related medicines and equipment before diluting an already weak agreement at the World Trade Organisation this summer. Rather than backing the hub, the UK has studiously avoided mentioning it, potentially a bad harbinger for the future. Organising a delegation from parliament was an important step in building
Above: Sindiswa Zibaye, a community health committee member in Gugulethu township, Cape Town, joined the delegation. Right: SNP international development spokesperson Chris Law MP (centre) was part of the visit to the mRNA vaccine hub.