The US-based pharmaceutical company, Moderna, says it will establish a vaccine manufacturing facility in Kenya.
The ''state-of-the-art'' plant is expected to produce up to 500 million doses of vaccines each year, the company said in a statement on Thursday.
Moderna said the finalization of an agreement with the government of Kenya for the vaccine project ''is a key pillar of our global public health strategy.''
The facility will play key roles in Africa ''in areas of high unmet need such as cute respiratory infections, as well as persistent infectious diseases like HIV and outbreak threats such as Zika and Ebola," said Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna.
The pharmaceutical company said it also hopes the new facility will ''enable drug substance and drug product manufacturing for Kenya and the African continent'' as well as have the ''capacity to rapidly scale and respond to public health emergencies.''
Kenyan President William Ruto said "we are excited about this milestone.'' The project will ''serve not only Kenya but the African continent,'' Kenyan leader added.
It's not immediately clear when the project will be carried out. It will be Moderna's first mRNA manufacturing facility in Africa.
The mRNA vaccine technology works by deploying extracts from genetic material in the human body to provide immunity.
This makes it different from other vaccines that generally use a weakened or inactivated germ to prepare the body for a possible attack from the real disease-causing organisms.
