https://newsletter.en.creamermedia.com
Africa
Africa
africa

Aspen to halt Covid vaccine output as J&J orders dry up

10th August 2022

By: Reuters

  

Font size: - +

South Africa's Aspen Pharmacare will stop making Covid-19 vaccines from the end of this month due to a lack of orders, a senior executive said, further undermining Africa's already meager capacity to produce doses.

Aspen currently produces vaccines for Johnson & Johnson. In March, it struck a deal to produce, price, and sell its own-brand version of the shot for African markets.

That deal was considered a game-changer for a continent frustrated by sluggish Western handouts. But, while only a fifth of adults in Africa are fully vaccinated, according to the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, demand for shots have failed to materialise.

Aspen has had no orders for its Aspenovax vaccine and has not received orders from Johnson & Johnson beyond August.

J&J did not respond to an email seeking comment.

"The thing here is that we don't know if we will get further orders from J&J. But we are finishing off production of what we've got," Stavros Nicolaou, group senior executive at Aspen, told Reuters.

Without new orders, Aspen would have to shut down all of its 450-million-dose annual production capacity, he said.

Aspen could get some indication from J&J by September as to whether any new orders are in the pipeline, Nicolaou said. But he cautioned that those might not be enough.

The bulk of the company's Covid-19 production lines had been meant to produce Aspenovax for Africa. Its initial plans aimed to boost annual capacity to 700 million doses by February and a further expansion to one billion doses to meet expected demand.

However, its existing Aspenovax production lines are currently sitting idle. Without Aspenovax orders, Aspen would be forced to convert production lines to manufacture anaesthetics, Nicolaou said.

"Then Africa loses its Covid vaccine capacity, the only one really that exists on the continent," he said. "Of course we cannot continue with vacant lines indefinitely. And we would have to get an order imminently."

Edited by Reuters

Comments

Projects

Showroom

SABAT
SABAT

From batteries for boats and jet skis, to batteries for cars and quad bikes, SABAT Batteries has positioned itself as the lifestyle battery of...

VISIT SHOWROOM 
John Ratcliffe
John Ratcliffe

At John Ratcliffe, we are aftermarket specialists for heavy-duty on and off-road vehicles. We engineer and retrofit advanced safety systems, engine...

VISIT SHOWROOM 

Latest Multimedia

sponsored by

Magazine round up | 22 November 2024
Magazine round up | 22 November 2024
22nd November 2024

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION







sq:0.098 0.193s - 191pq - 2rq
Subscribe Now