Moderna To Set Up $500 Million mRNA Vaccine Facility In Kenya

Kenyan President William Ruto announced on Thursday that a $500 million mRNA vaccine facility will be built in Nairobi by the US biotech company Moderna. At a regional trade summit sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce, Ruto declared, "This will be the only such facility on the African continent." According to him, Moderna's investment "will be a catalyst for the medical and pharmaceutical industry not only in Kenya but also in our continent."

Moderna stated in a different statement that the cutting-edge facility would produce up to 500 million doses of vaccines annually, but it did not specify when production would begin. As per Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, "We hope to bring mRNA innovation to the people of Africa in areas of high unmet need, such as acute respiratory infections, as well as persistent infectious diseases like HIV and outbreak threats like Zika and Ebola."

The business claimed it has agreements in place to build mRNA manufacturing facilities in Kenya, the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK. Moderna and other vaccine producers believe that mRNA technology, which triggers an immune response by delivering genetic molecules encoding for essential components of a pathogen into human cells, can hasten the development and production of immunisations and increase their efficacy.