mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub in South Africa

business as usual is not a possibility we are all in this together and only together we can make a difference globally and locally if the pandemic has proven us one thing it is that only united and international solidarity will enable us to successfully stop this pandemic it has shown us once again that we are all interconnected so therefore vaccination vaccination the world against covert 19 should be a top priority and remain so so we must keep reminding ourselves of the reason for ensuring vaccination of the entire world because no one is safe until everyone is safe so what happens here has an impact elsewhere and the other way around and so we need to make sure that everyone across the world has access to vaccination it is simply not acceptable that at this point only 10 of the people in africa have been fully vaccinated simply because they do not have access to a vaccine and in low-income countries it is even less five percent so we can and we have to do better since the breakout of this pandemic vaccine equity has been a purpose of fire or fight for by providing real solutions by providing fuel solutions at first at the short term true support to kovacs and later on we supported through the sharing of vaccines with other countries however we must look beyond charity and seek structural solutions donations are still important but more is required and that is why i have invested in projects that increase the local productions of vaccines and i am particularly proud proud of this initiatives in south africa which is led by the who and supported by belgium and our other european partners such as france and germany whose ambassadors are among us today also here it should be the aim of this innovative emery breakthrough to help meet the current vaccine gap the success of our global recovery depends to a large measure on our ability to effectively fight the pandemic together and that is exactly what this project is all about to bring structural solution to local needs and worldwide efforts and let me finish by saying this this initiative is showing the world how you fight again how you solve the fight against inequality because more than one year i'm a doctor i'm not a science i'm a politician and i'm trying to find structural solution and more than one year i hear i only heard what was not possible and as a minister of development corporation i'm very proud to be here and to witness these projects that makes my job unnecessary because that means they are finding a structural solution that means that they will be self-resilient and this project is not only a solution for south africa but for the whole continent so thank you very much for that because you have shown the world how it could be done you have shown the world how you can uh how you can win the fight against inequality and thank you very much for that thank you very much minister maryam kitty and our last contribution [Music] will come from dr tedros gabrielesis the dg of the world health organization organization over two years [Music] thank you thank you master of ceremony and minister fala my friend minister minister manamela professor dillers professor mueller and professor de oliveira and i saw pet writing somewhere yeah professor ter blanche and dear colleagues and friends and of course ambassadors here present good afternoon and it's an honor to be here two years ago at the world was still coming to grips with the spread of a new corona virus who did what only who can do we convened hundreds of scientists from around the world to identify the most urgent priorities in research and development among them was the development of vaccines tomorrow marks the second anniversary of that first meeting convened by doubleh it's incredible to think that within a year of that meeting the first vaccines were approved and just two years later more than 10 billion brothers have been administered globally the development and approval of not one but several vaccines in record time is an extraordinary scientific triumph that sets a new standard there can be no doubt that vaccines have saved countless lives are helping to turn the tide on the pandemic that's why we're meeting in person after a long jail and are now giving many countries the confidence to relax restrictions but as you know this scientific triumph has been marred by vast inequities in access more than half of the world's population is now fully vaccinated and yet 84 percent of the population of africa is yet to receive a single dose much of this inequity has been driven by the fact that globally vaccine production is concentrated in a few mostly high income countries one of the most obvious lessons of the funding therefore is the urgent need to increase local production of vaccines especially in low and middle-income countries that's why in april last year who issued a call for expression of interest for establishing a technology transfer hub for mrna vaccines the turnout of free applications was high but south africa was chosen as i have for the mrna because of several reasons and the hab was established here in south africa as a partnership between wha african biologics the biologicals and vaccines institute of southern africa or biobank the southern african medical research council the africa centers for business control and prevention and the medicines patent pool we very much appreciate the strong support for the hub from belgium canada the european union france germany and norway and it's already producing results with african's announcement last week that it has produced its own mrna vaccine based on publicly available information about the composition of an existing vaccine and when i met petra this morning i said considering all the developments i said our baby is in good hands it will grow stronger and it's as strong as a strategic solution for the problem that we're facing now as you know the mrna technology it's not just for kobe it will be for malaria tb hiv and the rest it would be a game changer and we expect this vaccine to be more suited to the context in which it will be used with fewer storage constraints and at a lower price the medicines patent pool will manage the intellectual property and where necessary issue licenses to manufacturers once a vaccine has been successfully developed other manufacturers from around the world will be able to produce the vaccine for national and regional use by the way many of the countries who have to serve as a hab will be now a spoke since south africa is the hub then others will be the spoke and there will be a network of countries and institutions who will work together we expect clinical trials to start in the first quarter of this year with approval expected in 2024. spokes in other countries as i said earlier receiving the technology should be able to receive approval shortly thereafter and the spokes are almost in each and every uh region already i congratulate african on this achievement and doubly cho looks forward to supporting you as you take this vaccine candidate into clinical trials and beyond and i congratulate south africa on its leadership throughout the pandemic in hosting this mrna technology transfer in chairing the act accelerator facilitation council and in initiating a resolution at the world trade organization to temporarily suspend intellectual property rights for covenanting product products and president ramaphoda's leadership was very clear continentally and also globally through his leadership in the act accelerator facilitation council indeed if the owners of mrna vaccine technology shared them with the hub we could expedite manufacturing removing the need for large clinical trials and cutting development and approval time by at least one year once again i congratulate all those involved in bringing the mrna technology transfer have to this point and i look forward to its further development and the reason why south africa was chosen is not only african or bioback but the presence of this university stella bush and also bmri and and and seri and of course the rest of the ecosystem that can support it so we we believe that this commitment or the capacity which we have in the country will make the project successful and the only option we have is success and that's why we have to work hard all partners that we have met today and some of them that we will be meeting tomorrow who remains committed to supporting the development of local manufacturing in africa and around the world to increase regional health security and as part of our vision for the highest attainable standard of health for all people in all nations and we had a very good visit today by the way with the president we have seen his commitment i know he will continue to invest and we had a very good discussion also with minister of health and minister of education we visited of course afrijan and we visited and met a very vibrant community crossroads and vacci taxi also the incredible invention and the commitment you see to serve the people it's very visible and we are really the first day of the visit we're really encouraged by all that we have we have seen and congratulations and look forward to working with you even more closely to realize the project so thank you so much emcee and back to you [Applause] thank you very much to all the speakers and thanks a teacher so now we have an opportunity for the questions and answers we will try and see if we can take two rounds the dg and the minister arrived late last night so if i still want to work for this government i will have to make sure that they have some time to us please allow us to take just two rounds we hope that would be enough so there's a hand here please indicate which media house you come from and indicate who the question is for so let's start with one two three four thank you my question is uh [Music] um how important is establishing a company such as this and very much on the eu's example how important is that is the who actively involved in setting up this agency and why is it necessary for the country the second question is for dr um and it is elected to the ama as africa uh nigeria i think um kenya all abit of all three economies and i'm gonna consider south africa okay [Music] leader um and some belgian companies are already making mrna vaccines so are any of them going to share their know-how and are you going to try to encourage an introducer and dr tedros yesterday the bmj published a really disturbing article about a company employed by buying tech actively campaigning against the south african um hub and you're saying it's unlikely to be successful and it will infringe patents and instead promoting a full and finished operation for the fisa vaccine which involves no very little empowerment for south africa can you comment on what looks like farmer dirty tricks to undermine the hub thank you [Music] [Music] good afternoon uh dr tedros this question would be for you what is the wh so position on the pandemic at the moment is it too early to say that it could be moved into an epidemic and dare i say it is a time to unmask and then for uh the south african minister of health i'd like to ask you so si novak has been approved for adult use in south africa is this good news and could we actually see maybe more people getting vaccinated and trying to bring an end to also some hesitancy and also just opening up for other vaccines thank you very much oh sorry julie shire from cgtn china global television thank you number four and then we'll try and respond and see if this is still there laura from chinese tv lagos nigeria my question is for dr ted ross we have seen we have seen along across the country in anti-vaxx people protesting are you not looking at it that the booster shots keep coming when is the booster shop call it going to be a final thing that okay this is the last booster shot we are going to take for this pandemic that's the first one secondly most countries are now dropping the use of face mask what is the bleach o stand on that as most african countries look for direction from the issue thank you all right we will handle the question by asking either the minister or the dg they are also accompanied by expects who may know the details of the question so i'll leave after the ministers and all the support they have brought for some of the questions so maybe let's start with the minister partner on the question of the treaty if you would like to do that and then also the question about the response to the campaign against the hub um if you would like to do that and then the third question is uh the synovic and is it good news and it's going to assist and then after that we'll move to the minister from belgium uh the one or two questions for her especially the companies in belgium that are also in the mrna big pharma and what's their views on this world and that is being proposed and then we'll end with that dr tedros gabriel aces that are populous questions from so let's start with minister park thank you very much tj program director we are fully in support of the african medicine agency what is left is really just our processes because we do have particular lengthy process in terms of approval of treaties and it's going to be processed through our parliamentary process and and be approved so what what we will be following up is just to working with colleagues in the our health committee and and the presiding officers who will be following up uh but there is no in principle hesitation it's it's more really operational in terms of making sure that we we do sign the treaty for the african medicine agency as you would know that our president has not been only leading in as far as the issue of access to vaccines but also to diagnostics to therapeutics so we can't you know look left and turn right so it's not going to happen so we're very committed to a continental you know pan-african approach in terms of sharing knowledge sharing resources and technical know-how so we will be following up in terms of just making sure that this process is is concluded up to our legislative processes program director i don't know whether you're saying i should also comment on the biontech issue um i'm sure the minister will deal with that yes from our side i think it's it will be quite worrying if a company with whom we already have good relations in terms of almost half of our vaccine stock is acquired from biotech so if indeed we could uh verify that they have a particular view about us also accessing the the technology and the the know-how i'm sure between ourselves and our colleagues in uh at accelerator we will be able together with the who and minister the government of belgium and other countries no way who we work very closely i'm sure we will be able to tackle that to not actually allow any private company to protect its interests by preventing others from accessing knowledge and and know-how the question of the assignor bank yes bonsanova and currently recently signed farm from china have been approved by sabra this just opens the way for more variety in terms of the number of vaccines which we can we can use hopefully as you asked whether there will be more people hopefully and more vaccines but i think one should hasten to say from the government side um the reality nevertheless at this stage is that because of the way in which the other two the jnj and and and and the fisa biotech vaccines had already advanced in their approval and trial state stages we committed and signed agreements and at this stage we still have sufficient stock for boosters for and you know new vaccinations so it will take a while that we will be looking for you know if it had come earlier would have diversified as we remember as i said we started with uh astrazeneca um but at this stage we are happy to have a wide spread of of opportunities and i'm sure as you would know the in those who are in in this in the business talk about you know the supply and demand so if there are more suppliers if there are more participants hopefully as we move forward i know there was a question which i am happy to to leave to dr tedros about how many more boosters but as it becomes clear that as the variants multiply we need more clearly somewhere down the line even the stock which we have once it's it's it's running lower we will be able to then have a better you know a kind of variety of vaccines which you can access yeah i think those which could deal with the program director will end there and i'm happy to defer to dg and others to deal with the more difficult ones thank you very much thanks very much minister the minister belgium the issue of sharing with the big family thank you for your question [Music] thank you for your question um the position of belgium is clear the vaccine should be a public public good and like i said uh the discussion of the patent waiver we are having this more than two years now and we are not a step ahead we didn't the only um conclusion that we can say today that everyone is open for dialogue so but we are two years later and we all invested public money to develop vaccines so vaccines should be a public good but after two years in a pandemic and we are seeing that the discussion of the patent waiver are not moving so we didn't sit still and we went searching for another solution um and that doesn't mean that the discussion about a patent away has to stop i think it has something that has to go on and never waste a good crisis we have to learn from this there are things that we didn't know and then but there are also a lot of things that we know now um and i think um i think we have to take lessons about it so um we are active in this in this discussion but at the same time as we see that is not uh progressing we are searching other solutions like i said we donated uh 11 million vaccines through kovacs so that's one vaccine for each billion citizens but like i said uh i'm looking for a structural solution for me it's a kind of charity it's a solution or short term but it's better to do this than nothing and at the same time we have other companies like universal it's a company in belgium who is also in contact with afrigen and they are working also in senegal to help the the countries for with the local production and they are sharing their now how and their knowledge uh to produce local vaccines um and we are also investing with uh bo our uh development bank uh we have also the gnt uh what is uh produced in south africa is an investment with our uh development bank but if we really want a structural solution then i think that the thing that we visit today um that's in my eyes a better solution than the patent waiver because you make the country self-resilient and you there is a there is a formula and it is open and does it mean that there will not and there will no be no cooperation with the pharma yes we have to work together it is uh this complementary and this project shows what has to be done earlier two years ago but i'm happy that today we can say there is a solution and we are making some progress thank you very much minister teacher traders thank you um i mean these are very important questions maybe starting from africa medicine's agency from the inception of the idea i was minister of [Music] foreign affairs actually at the time i i was very supportive because common platforms or continental institutions are important because there are many shared issues in in our continent that has to be addressed uh through unison so africa medicines agencies is one and this follows by the way the experience from the european medicine agency that helped actually in bringing the whole union together even in reducing the funding or the amount of money they invest in um individual approvals because the common approval cuts you know costs at the country level approval that's that's done but not only that when you talk about medicines you know about counterfeit and forged and poor quality and each and every country cannot fight this it's cross-border so the african medicine agency can help fight this also and there are many things that i can outline and its benefits but that's why who has been supporting the establishment of it and not only technically but we even did something that we do rarely financially normally we support we give technical support but to africa medicine's agency we we provided including financial support and we helped also in pushing for the ratification and i believe that this institution will be very very important for the continent i remember and i was telling them a story earlier today uh when i proposed afrika city in 2013 in abuja some people laughed at me i had good reason to recommend and but it may not be clear for for for some people or some countries but now i see there is a continent-wide support to africa cdc but it took many years for many people to understand it's it's its benefits so i see the same thing with with africa medicine's agency the same resistance and the same doubts and the same concerns that i know africa medicine african medicine agency will be as beneficial as africa cdc so i would like to use this opportunity actually to all countries who have been stratified to ratify speed up the establishment the strings in it and then it should go up and running to you know contribute to africa's uh well-being and and and improvement in in health conditions so it's late to be honest it should have been done yesterday and i encourage all countries to ratify and use the african medicine agency but not only african medicine's agency you have africa cdc and you have also partnership for vaccine manufacturing in africa the pe mva and there is a need also for other continental institutions so i think we need to identify and establish the continental institutions that can bring us all together because there are individual issues but there are also shared issues the world is now becoming more interdependent more intertwined so that's why the the and global institutions are more important than than before and then on the bmj article um i i would like us to focus on maybe what we're doing in the hub and what also buying tech and kenupa are doing to be honest we need both so forget about what they have said or they have done and focus on what do they want to do they're partnering with countries i think three countries who would like to start with fill and finish start production and and move on and have increased the availability of vaccines is that bad it's not it's good so they can do that and then they have we're doing the hub if they could do the technology transfer the intellectual property we're pushing for that it can cut the period we need as petra is telling us this morning and i said it in my in my speech so if those companies can give us for this biohabit can cut the amount of time we need to go to the finish line even if they don't still it can take them but it will be done but more importantly this hub is a strategic investment strategic investment to boost local production in low and middle-income countries it's not only the south africa hub but we have the spokes also in brazil in argentina indonesia and and elsewhere all over that really going to be boost or build local production meaning it will address the equity issue meaning it will really strike straight on the monopoly issue which is causing the supply demand problems and then of course the equity so this can also go ahead and should go ahead and the companies that biontech or others should support that not only covid by the way malaria hiv tb we say this isn't a strategic investment in low and middle-income countries so i they they can live together it's not either or it's buzz so whatever extra things they they speak to be honest it doesn't matter but they have to really see i remind all of us that we need balls okay they move fill and finish and bring some products now and we vaccinate good and then there this also investment that will have a serious uh solution strategic solution we should invest in that yes so we need bots why do we even say either so my message is i mean i i read it as as you others whether it's kenup or biontech or whoever that's what my message is that too can be done together and i have seen the strong commitment countries i have to start with the fill and finish and work with the bandit fight because it's not wrong and then we do the strategic also which is which can be done so it can be it can be done side by side and i think it's better if we focus on these issues and what can we get also to you know [Music] improve uh health i mean that that's the main aim finally and the contribution of all of us will be very very important then on um who's position on the um epidemic pandemic our expectation is that this pandemic the acute phase of this pandemic will end this year of course with one condition meaning the 70 vaccination by mid this year around june july so if that can be done the accurate phase can can can really end and that's what we're we're expecting it's in our hands and that's why we were saying it's not a matter of chance it's a matter of choice so if the world wants to end it it has the means to end it if it wants to continue to be greedy and doesn't want to end it then it will not end that's the problem so we will continue to play hide and seek with this virus and the virus will have safe heaven to you know evolve then south africa will not stop detecting they have incredible systems [Music] so no no we are happy you detected that's transparency and as soon as the world tried to punish you we said no this behavior should be rewarded not punished you know identify variants report immediately is a behavior that should be rewarded not punished and you have done really well i think you have you followed the debate the whole world it said ultimately slowly but surely came to your side saying south africa has done the right thing and it has to be rewarded not punished and those who have done something unnecessary you know the travel ban i think they changed their mind and shifted so which is which is really good so continue to to to be transparent and that's what we should encourage others also also to do but what i'm saying is the delay in our actions or the delay in the 70 vaccination rate will give the virus a chance new variants may emerge and then that's another problem then back to another wave so i think we have to we have now all the tools at hand we have to deliver and finish because the whole world is to be honest sick and tired and then on when do we time to unmask to be honest mask um of course when you're told to do it you would feel a bit um it's a bit difficult but i think in the future it may continue to be a part of our culture uh it can prevent also the seasonal ones you know so i think doing it it doesn't hurt it can only benefit so maybe doing it a culture may help and hand hygiene the same and other things the same but for unmask through time to unmask i don't think we need to have a deadline to be honest if the iq even after the active phase is gone it's better to be careful you know being cautious is really important um what we really missed during the lockdowns and all the serious very severe measures was we couldn't even come together we couldn't even say goodbye to when loved ones were departing and um you know people cannot go to a stadium and so on to have time good time together so you know having a mask and so on it's individual level doesn't mean anything if we can do all the social things we want the gatherings we want and you know working together coming to office that we want and and so on then on boosters um you know on the the anti-wax of course there's serious movement there is misinformation there is this information um and we're working with tech industries to address that um but the social media is is really uh not helping uh we were in the as i said earlier in the taxi vaccine taxi vaccine maxi taxi and we asked them what you know from what you have observed what are the reasons behind people not do not want to be vaccinated they told us one is religion and the other one is fear and mainly is what they pick from the social media by the way they told us one very interesting thing also some people are afraid of needles and the mostly in men they don't like me needles so anyway the reason i'm raising this is we have been discussing this issue also with the president i think the behavioral inside part of what we do is really weak we have to underst really in integrate behavioral science into all that we do you cannot convince people without understanding what's behind you know the problem we're facing mainly the behavioral issues so we have already started in which and we will build capacity in countries and i think this is for the long term there is a need for investment in behavioral science which is really neglected so the social the anthropology you know it's just physicians these or doctors then publicly you know the epidemiology and so on then we don't go beyond that but we need the social scientists we need the anthropologists we need the behavioral scientists and it i think that angle is is less investment the need to have more investment to address and this antibox can even can be defeated i think through that through that approach on booster our focus now is of course booster is important but many countries we have we are now getting information more than 70 percent of this are those who have not even vaccinated once and most of hospitalizations also the same so we need to start with vaccinating the unvaccinated rather than boosting the already vaccinated still missing out on a large population unvaccinated who don't want to be vaccinated because of several reasons and some countries who are succeeding now in doing really house to house outreach and understanding that is especially the senior citizens and people with who have comorbidity and so on and make sure that they're vaccinated and when they do that they see the number of cases and this is really decoupling because those who are vulnerable and you know who have a risk of severe diseases and deaths if they are vaccinated i think the first second round is for them is more important than booster of course then the booster comes and the booster will be again for the vulnerable vulnerable groups how long does it continue with us i think it depends on how the virus evolves so it's very difficult to uh to say but what we're investing now with the biohab if the affordability of the vaccines continues and then that will be an opportunity actually to boosters or follow-up vaccinations because the affordability improves and the supply and demand problem is is addressed and that's why we're investing in south africa as ahab and also in spokes in many parts many countries throughout throughout the world so sorry i took my time to go into some detail but thank you so much just wanted to use the opportunity thank you very much to the responses to the question i'm happy to take one question and there's one question from the media and then i'll have to unfortunately request my counterpart tg to to close maybe if it's going to be brief ram let's take you and the lady at the back i think is arty please let's be drift now okay [Music] i have a question for dr ted ross if you see now you look back two years of the management of the company what have you made if you have free reference in the way it was managed and one question specifically do you think lockdown was a mistake you have to get locked down from countries like you think it was a mistake when you see the huge economic and social damage which was caused by yourselves yeah no thank you nope yeah so maybe i will start from the last one on on lockdowns i mean or other measures there is no like one-size-fits-all approach that we have proposed we left it up to countries to see their situation and take tailored measures up to them tailored measures so should follow their their situation and from country to country forget about country to country even in one country from one province to the other from one district to the other there are differences from one county to the other you cannot have like a blanket coverage of one measure it varies so i think um even going forward some places maybe if a lockdown is necessary based on the situation maybe some countries may go back to that but they have to really understand and assess their their situation um lockdowns affect the economy uh and it's it's when it's really a must and you don't have any choices that you use it it's really unwanted uh action to be honest but you would be forced to take that because you have no other option now with vaccines with all the tools we have i don't think anyone is doing it and i don't expect that lockdowns will will happen because we have the tools we know the virus very well you know it's better and it's evolving also and less severity and so on and we have the tools the vaccines and so on so i don't expect to be honest lockdowns even that is not the case throughout the world now the world is really sick and tired so glad that we have at least removed we're removing that one one thing but that's a very last resort that countries used last last when they have no means and this is before even the advent of the vaccines and then on the what we can maybe what we can learn i can take it that way and you know as a global community even now we're not prepared uh we're not ready for another pandemic we have learned a lot relatively better off but still i would say we're not we're not prepared and one of the problems from the start was even in high-income countries the investment in cutting-edge technology especially in medicine was very very high and the world has really then progressed a lot in terms of innovation for high-tech medicine medical interventions even robotics and so on while investment in very simple public health abcs was really not not there i remember when ebola my the first two years of my turn by the way sw we were fighting ebola in the rc it's north kimbu for people who know it it's an unstable area more than 18 armed groups operate and we even lost two of our colleagues they were killed and many other damages but within that environment we were contact tracing 25 000 people while in a very high income country very developed they couldn't even do contact racing of some thousands meaning the public health was neglected it's not because they don't have capacity but the lack of attention so i think this should be a revival of of public health the simple things that should be done starting from surveillance the you know the of course you should add preparedness the surveillance early detection response and the whole force the whole army you need for that should be in in in place so i think that's one area where i think need some progress and the second is we don't have the still rule of game or an agreement or treaty if you like to govern a country you need rule of law you can't govern a country if you don't have a law and for a shared problem like this common threat you need to have some rules of the game otherwise it cannot be governed like the pandemic which was going out of control because no country feels obliged because there is no obligation because obligation comes from law that should be do this or don't do this that's why we're pushing for treaty of course there is ihr but that's the small part of uh response you know that can be covered through ihr so i think we need to have a law also that governs so that we don't have another anarchy to be honest and you know the world when there is a common threat responds in a very predictable way so people know what to do and what not to do that's why we're pushing for for uh treaty um [Music] and and these are the two then the third is um surveillance that's why by the way we have established now the berlin hub so another have we have mrna hub here and then berlin have is collaborative intelligence we mainly depend on a few um nodes globally like maybe government information and so on in terms of surveillance but we need to bring all institutions together and there should be collaborative intelligence and the genomic and so on also will will be part of it and you know all information should really be taken uh seriously and um it starts from by the way that collaborative intelligence to protect the world but i don't want to go into details but that's where one of the weaknesses we have seen where we should we should improve and i can go on and on in other areas but i think these are the three maybe we need to go ahead we go back and try to learn from the mekong region they did really better even now they're they're they're okay because it could be the muscle memory they had the sars experience and they responded quickly so i hope the world has a muscle memory now and it will respond in a better way but still documenting that experience and learning from this and um you know [Music] using that for for the future will be will be very important i mean these are the three i i can i can say but final one story i would like to share with you is on the what happened when we first heard maybe stories that nobody says but stories that can inspire and that inspired me and even gave me energy in the initial stage the wohan municipality posted a report in its website saying there is a new disease and then our beijing office detected that and then she passed it over to our regional office through that to our headquarters and the day was december 31 2019 meaning a new year eve these guys didn't say okay it's a new eve let's go dancing it can wait they didn't they knew it was serious and they were very cautious they passed it and then they processed the information on a new year day that's january 1 2020 and then on january 2nd it was verified confirmed that this is a new disease it took them less than 48 hours in the middle of a new year that's new year eve new year and the day after the new year when many people are already down because of hungover but that inspired me because they didn't leave it because it's a new year eve or it's a new year they did their job then i said okay i have a good team we can do this together i think you know we they're working in good phase and this pandemic fighting it is really going to be okay with such kind of a team but has been difficult two years the all the stuff has been affected and the stress the pressure you can you can imagine but i think we benefited from the 2014 ebola outbreak that helped us to change some things in in double h and i can say that during kobit it was better prepared and then we have introduced other changes that's again we believe which is better prepared and member states are now agreeing also to strengthen it further and we hope they will restrain them because it's it's their institution and one of them is with me here mr kitter that's why we came together but just wanted to share that that story and that we have to be serious about pandemics even if it's a new year or new year if any event any signal has to be taken seriously and that's what we will we will continue to do thank you ladies and gentlemen i'm sure you'll agree with me that we can continue for the whole evening on this subject let's take three messages with ourselves that every duck cloud has a silver lining and out of this pandemic let's explore new ways of making sure that low medium low medium income countries can benefit from the technology transfer and that through this mrna tech hub where south africa the rest of the continent and other partners from the rest of the world demonstrate the working together of research institutions university science councils private sector africa africa and biovac in south africa is perhaps a new model that should be explored and that this is done in partnership with a number of partners ec world chamber organization germany france belgium canada so all of these are new ways in which we need to look at how we address the challenges of society in the future so with those three concluding messages i'd like to invite uh my colleague dr sander butler to do the vote of thanks and from my side thank you again for your cooperation thank you very much my colleague teaching for dsi just to share with you dram draca is the most senior dj in government and he's a dean of society so thanks for um for all the work you've done starting from guiding on the preparations for the visit with all your teams dr mufa on my site dr crisp and all the teams that worked with the belgian team and also the team from the who under the leadership of dr owen kalua and one thing that came up here is that strong leadership is what is very important as we do the work and for that i would like to thank the leadership of dr churchos at the who for all the leaders he actually led from the front when the whole epidemic started and also working with the different offices and for us here is our translation regional office under dr moretti and then our local office and dr owen kalua i mean as a country where one of the major beneficiaries in terms of their support getting the teams to support us on the ground up to to date we still have teams from who that are supporting us but more importantly for driving this initiative and thank you dr tetras for showing confidence in our country in our capabilities in our academic and scientific expertise and we really appreciate that also in the leadership i'd like to thank our political leadership present here today dr joe pasha my boss and my other boss here deputy minister manamena south african government displayed a lot of leadership i mean from the president to the top um from the president going down we had leadership we had entrepreneurship every week we never slept we had midnight meetings actually as i'm looking at calendar now when we're talking about when my minister mentioned the issue of astrazeneca when we got the bad news after that press release on novavex and as a and and the astrazeneca by the team of shapiro mapping them clinton said wait i think there's something we can do she phoned the former minister and the same night we met dr stefans to discuss the the program of how to actually save the situation of that astrazeneca and i can tell you the team led by glenda and we're working with linda kell baker and the other scientists worked on the protocols we worked on the budget and i know when we we and the stocks were moved over all to the central point where to whether to charter a flight where to work with treasury equipment it was such a lot of it but again every day the president had a personal interest the minister had personal interest and committees and triple c amc and vaccine led at the at the center and the new class of government guided and we knew that we had to be up so that leadership was very important from the who but from the government here but also being guided by the afro regional office thank you very much to all the collaboration from the other countries the minister did mention that we don't work in a vacuum we are part of a broader ecosystem and and we thank the minister here the minister from belgium but also we have other um european countries uh present here today members of the diplomatic call we really appreciate all the support that we have been getting as a country in responding uh the the support and all the work that that is there but of course uh at who if we did not have the kind of leadership academic and scientific leadership in the country they wouldn't have had the courage to come to us let me thank our host here professor at the venus uh other professors here my friend julio uh he didn't tell me that he was living question until i met him here but anyway he's still part of the team i mean we had to wake him up at night and sometimes to come in present because i mean this thing is presenting that this protein spark is like this and then this is like that so we had said look come come and tell the president you're not gonna be able to explain this and you know i was saying something to my colleague that there's something with politicians and making to work at night so so some entrepreneurs meetings will meet at nine o'clock in the evening and would get him up to say please come in present they'll come as a team and they'll be able to really nourish but what's more nice about south african scientists you have to enjoy it you know they when they explain they make science seem so easy and understandable and would actually even take them to media briefings so that they are able to talk to the normal people on the ground i think that is very important but also as we move on all the other leadership of the institutions uh from syria from african from biovac africa city and all that we really thank you for all the work i think this is a start i think the epidemic has allowed us to unleash our potential and it actually gave us a bit of energy to move faster than we were moving as we're moving forward and thank you very much for that then coming on to the actual implementation within the leadership in the provinces in terms of the way that has been done and we've got our msc here at minister bombo in the western cape and i'm sure she's representing her other colleagues at national we actually donate facilities facilities are in provinces so those are the people that do the work we can just guide in terms of policy health is a concurrent competence in south africa between national and the provinces and that work is important we can do and push but they actually get the staff to do the work and ensure that we move on and with all what and what all what needs to be done i cannot thank uh i came once more the our team led by dr chris but national as a project leader for the vaccination program being able to once we handle the political politics and everything to deal with all the calls from julio from calendar from a professor terry blanch and all the other people around to ensure that work goes on as we move ahead and everyone is very important and we thank you for making time but more importantly members of the media we know you ask difficult questions sometimes we don't respond but it's very important for accountability that we are able to tell our communities what we are doing where we are not doing right and we need to be transparent there are one very transparent government and we thank you for being with us and we still believe that tomorrow will still be part of all the proceedings as the teams will be going to the other side and thank you very very much for everyone for being here and for being part of the visit thank you [Applause] yes [Music]

2022-02-14 20:36

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