In January, Cape Town-based biotechnology company Afrigen Biologics announced that it has successfully produced a lab-scale batch of a COVID-19 vaccine that is similar to that made by pharmaceutical company Moderna. The achievement is particularly impressive since the vaccine uses the still relatively new mRNA vaccine technology. The achievement billed as the first successful “reverse engineering” of Moderna’s vaccine, has been hailed as an important milestone towards building capacity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines. Read More