WeeklySA_AdminCAPACITY: A $15-million African Development Bank investment secured to build Africa’s cholera vaccine manufacturing facility, positioning South Africa to become a continental hub for vaccine production, create hundreds of jobs…
By WSAM Reporter
South Africa is poised to take a major step towards transforming Africa’s health security following the approval of a R250 million loan to build a new vaccine manufacturing facility that will significantly expand the continent’s ability to produce its own lifesaving vaccines.
The funding, secured from the African Development Bank (AfDB), will support the construction of a state-of-the-art multi-vaccine manufacturing plant in Cape Town, enabling Biovac to triple its annual production capacity to 500 million vaccine doses and establish Africa’s first end-to-end production of oral cholera vaccines.
The facility will also make South Africa the continent’s first producer of an inactivated polio vaccine through technology-transfer partnerships with some of the world’s leading vaccine developers.
The investment marks another milestone in Africa’s push to reduce its overwhelming dependence on imported vaccines.
Currently, the continent imports more than 99% of the vaccines it uses despite carrying one of the world’s highest burdens of vaccine-preventable diseases.
The African Union has set an ambitious target of producing 60% of Africa’s vaccines locally by 2040, a goal the Biovac expansion is expected to help advance significantly.
Beyond strengthening public health, the project is expected to stimulate economic growth and industrial development.
Construction and operation of the expanded facility are projected to create around 340 permanent jobs, with about 43% of the positions earmarked for women and 30% for young people.
Biovac, which already employs more than 300 people, plans to expand specialised training programmes in vaccine manufacturing, quality assurance and regulatory science through partnerships with South African universities and regional training institutions.
African Development Bank Vice-President for Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialisation Solomon Quaynor said the investment represented far more than financing a manufacturing plant.
“This investment in Biovac is about much more than expanding vaccine production capacity. It is about building Africa’s health sovereignty, strengthening regional value chains and creating industrial capabilities that will enable the continent to respond more effectively to future health emergencies,” he said.
Narrative shift
Quaynor said supporting Africa’s first end-to-end oral cholera vaccine manufacturing facility and the continent’s first locally produced inactivated polio vaccine would help shift Africa from being largely dependent on imported vaccines to becoming a producer of critical health solutions.
Biovac chief executive officer Morena Makhoana described the agreement as a landmark moment for both the company and the continent.
“We welcome the African Development Bank as a partner in this landmark project and are proud that an institution so central to Africa’s development sees in Biovac the same opportunity we see — a chance to fundamentally shift the continent’s relationship with its own health security,” he said.
“The project will shift the narrative from majority-imported vaccines to majority-exported vaccines. This is part of changing that reality permanently. This is what Africa’s health sovereignty looks like in practice”.
The expanded facility will initially manufacture oral cholera vaccines before adding vaccines against polio, pneumonia and meningitis.
The project is expected to be completed in 2028.
The African Development Bank said the investment aligns with its broader strategy of building Africa’s pharmaceutical manufacturing sector while creating skilled jobs, encouraging innovation and strengthening resilience against future pandemics and disease outbreaks.
The bank’s director-general for Southern Africa, Kennedy Mbekeani, said the project focused on vaccines that address some of the continent’s most pressing public health challenges.
“This project allows one of Africa’s most experienced manufacturers to scale up exactly where the need is greatest — vaccines that protect children from cholera, polio, pneumonia and meningitis,” he said.
The expansion is also expected to benefit from Africa’s emerging vaccine-financing architecture, including Gavi’s African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA), a $1.2 billion initiative designed to reward African manufacturers that achieve World Health Organization prequalification and supply vaccines through UNICEF procurement programmes.
The African Development Bank is part of a broader consortium of international development finance institutions supporting the project.
Imported vaccines
The financing syndicate is led by the International Finance Corporation and includes a long-term quasi-equity facility from the Human Development Accelerator, a European Union-backed initiative implemented by the European Investment Bank in partnership with the Gates Foundation.
Additional grant funding and technical support from global health partners will facilitate the transfer of vaccine manufacturing technology to Biovac, allowing the company to broaden its portfolio of locally produced vaccines.
Established in 2003 through a partnership between the South African government and the private sector, Biovac has become the country’s leading vaccine supplier. It has already delivered more than 450 million vaccine doses across Southern Africa, including COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.
Health experts have long argued that Africa’s dependence on imported vaccines leaves the continent vulnerable to global supply disruptions, export restrictions and inequitable access during health emergencies, as witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
If successful, the Biovac expansion could mark a turning point in Africa’s drive for pharmaceutical self-sufficiency, positioning South Africa not only as a regional manufacturing powerhouse but also as a key contributor to the continent’s long-term health security, economic resilience and industrial development.
