By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Walter Sisulu University and North West University have announced that they are at advanced stages of producing a new Covid-19 vaccine for the African continent which will address unequal access.
In a joint statement this week, the universities announced “very promising first results” from pre-clinical trials on a new Covid -19 vaccine candidate.
Germany-based Professor Markus Depfenhart, who holds appointments as professor at both universities, developed the DNA vaccine candidate. The trials, which are being conducted at the Pre-Clinical Drug Development Platform at the NWU, are well advanced and promising, the universities said in a joint statement. The trial and the analysis will continue over the following weeks.
Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the NWU Professor Awie Kotzé said: “We express our special appreciation to Prof Depfenhart, who has had to lead this project from Hamburg, Germany, because of the extended Covid travel restrictions. He has a big impact on our two universities. He is a driving force in bringing together a new Pan-African, multi-national platform around vaccines and epidemic responses in Africa, by Africa, for Africa.
Kotzé thanked Depfenhart and the collaborative team for their work on the project and expressed his trust that it would be the first of many collaborative projects with WSU.
DNA vaccines are relatively inexpensive and straightforward to manufacture, can be adjusted quickly to address mutations, and offer a simple yet effective means of inducing broad-based immunity, the universities said.
Chairperson of the WSU Council, advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC, has also thrown his weight behind the initiative.
“The impact of Covid-19 has been devastating to the world. For Africa and the developing world, inequalities, poverty, and deprivation have worsened. Unequal access to the vaccine has also highlighted these global inequities. Africa, then, finds itself, perhaps once again, having to rely on its own intellectual capital to navigate its way through the global crisis,” he said.
Meanwhile South Africa recorded 9 320 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, and 114 deaths were reported by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).
Gauteng recorded 5 902 of the new cases while the Western Cape accounted for 987 cases,North West recorded 515 new cases, followed by Free State with 418, KwaZulu-Natal with 372, Mpumalanga with 339, 274 in the Northern Cape, 260 in Eastern Cape, and 253 in Limpopo.
Acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane said an intervention team will be deployed to assist Gauteng to deal with the upsurge in COVID-19 new infections.
Kubayi-Ngubane was speaking during her visit to the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto on Saturday. She was in Gauteng to assess how the vaccination campaign’s doing.
She met with Gauteng Premier David Makhura to discuss ways to mitigate the impact of the upsurge.
“We will be able to send an intervention team into Gauteng that will assist us with the human capital. That finalisation we are doing with the Premier together with the MEC”.
Makhura said they welcomed the intervention and they would work with other stakeholders in addressing the situation.
The new cases represented a 16.6% positivity testing rate, the institute said.
“This brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 1 739 425; 12 148 854 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors,” the NICD said.
A further 114 Covid-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 57,706 to date and for updates on the national vaccine programme, click here.