Cape Town's Biovac Institute to produce Pfizer vaccines

Cape Town’s Biovac Institute to produce Pfizer vaccines

Published on

21 July 2021

South Africa’s Biovac Institute – based here in Cape Town – will become the first company in Africa to produce Pfizer’s COVID-19 jab.

Biovac won’t produce the jab from scratch, it will import the drug substance (the active ingredients) from Europe and “fill and finish” the vaccine in SA.

Production is expected to start early 2022.

At full operation, over 100 million vaccines will be produced for African Union member states, annually.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has welcomed the announcement:

Today’s agreement will contribute significantly to health security and sustainability on our continent, which currently has the least access to vaccination in the world.
— Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦 (@CyrilRamaphosa) July 21, 2021

Liesl Smit

Liesl is the Smile 90.4FM News Manager. She has been at Smile since 2016, with nearly 20 years experience in the radio industry, including reading news, field reporting and producing. In 2008 she won the Vodacom Journalist of the Year Award, Western Cape region. liesl@smile904.fm