Kenyan manufacturer Revital Healthcare is set to receive Ksh400 million from Bill and Melinda Foundation to address syringe shortages in Africa.
The Ksh400 million will help the firm more than triple the production of syringes as the continent ramps up its war against the pandemic.
The funds will allow Revital to boost syringe production to a level that’s enough to cover more than half of the routine immunization needs in Africa, the Gates Foundation stated.
According to the director of the Gates Foundation’s global delivery programs, Orin Levine noted that they were keen on ensuring an end to vaccine poverty amid reports that poor countries could get the jabs as late as 2023.
“It’s hard to plan for vaccine plenty when you are in the middle of vaccine poverty, but that is about to change, and it’s important that we also change,” the director of the Gates Foundation’s global delivery programs, stated in an interview.
Surabhi Rajaram, a Gates program officer who spoke to Bloomberg stated that syringes export restrictions and rising freight costs are hindering efforts to keep up with unprecedented demand.
"Traditionally, syringes have been shipped by sea, arriving at their destination in a month or two. When demand was more predictable, this was manageable," the Gate Foundation stated.
"But now, with the urgent rollout of vaccines, syringes are being flown to their destination to compress timelines. One boatload has become six or eight cargo planes. A nominal shipping cost has become five to 10 times more than the syringes themselves," it added.
The Foundation explained that the money will help Revital increase output, pending regulatory approval, from around 72 million syringes per year to 265 million by the end of 2022.
World Health Organization (WHO) stated that African countries such as Rwanda, South Africa and Kenya have already reported delays in receiving supplies of syringes. Covax, a global vaccine-sharing initiative that is working to supply many African countries with doses was seeking agreements with syringe manufacturers and trying to plan to keep vaccine deliveries from outpacing the availability of needles.
Africa has the lowest vaccination rate of any continent, and the W.H.O. estimates that about 59 million of the continent’s population have been infected since the beginning of the pandemic.
