Rwanda is set to sign a €7million (approximately Rwf7.7billion) deal with European Union and Belgian Cooperation Agency (Enabel) for capacity building in vaccine production.

It will be used to develop a programme that seeks to strengthen Rwanda’s regulatory framework and skills development towards vaccine production, according to officials.

The programme is expected to propel Rwanda’s ambition to become a regional vaccine production hub, especially drawing from lessons brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic that highlighted the need for Africa to develop a new public health order for developing continental solutions as well as for responsiveness to future health crises.

In 2021, Rwanda and Senegal signed a Memorandum of Understanding with BioNTech, a German pharmaceutical firm to initiate the construction of the state-of-the-art manufacturing plant for mRNA-based vaccines slated for mid-2022.

In February, BioNTech introduced the first modular mRNA manufacturing facility to promote scalable vaccine production in Africa. 

The model is in form of a container solution dubbed "BioNTainer” and it is expected to reduce the time that would have otherwise been spent building a manufacturing plant and ensuring conformity to standards.

Vaccines manufactured in these facilities are expected to be dedicated to domestic use and export to other member states of the African Union at a not-for-profit price.