Many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in Africa face challenges in achieving quality and sustainable production of vaccines. These challenges include weak understanding and/or implementation of good manufacturing practices (GMP) for vaccine production, insufficient infrastructure or an inconducive ecosystem. To address these challenges, the Local Production and Assistance (LPA) Unit in the Regulation and Prequalification Department (RPQ), at the Access to Medicines and Health Products Division (MHP) at WHO headquarters, in collaboration with WHO Country Office in Rwanda and the WHO Regional Office for Africa, is organizing a workshop on “Achieving quality and sustainable local vaccine production in Africa to improve access.”
The workshop aims to assist governments, regulators and manufacturers in African countries in strengthening vaccine production capacity to be of assured quality and sustainable. The workshop will cover a range of topics related to vaccine production to improve capacity to meet WHO/international standards, including WHO Prequalification (PQ) and Emergency Use Listing (EUL), and for sustainability.
The objectives of this workshop are to:
- Prepare and assist countries to understand the bottlenecks that hinder the attainment of quality sustainable local vaccine production and WHO PQ/EUL;
- Prepare and assist countries to understand and cultivate an enabling environment for quality assurance and sustainability in local vaccine production;
- Build capacity of countries to understand and achieve compliance with current WHO norms and standards for vaccines, including for WHO PQ/EUL;
- Bring together stakeholders to foster and strengthen partnerships and collaborative action to strengthen vaccine production in Africa.
Strengthening vaccine production in Africa is essential to improving access to vaccines, particularly for diseases that disproportionately affect the continent. This workshop will be an opportunity to bring together stakeholders from across the region to share knowledge and experience and to identify opportunities for collaboration and action.
The workshop will be held on 2, 3, 4 May 2023 in Kigali, Rwanda, both face-to-face and virtually. Participants will include government officials, regulators, vaccine manufacturers, academics, and other stakeholders involved in vaccine production in Africa.
For more information, please contact the Local Production & Assistance Unit (LPA) at: localproduction@who.int