Dr Daniel Ngamije Madandi appointed WHO’ s Director of Global Malaria Programme

AFRICA – World Health Organization has appointed Dr Daniel Ngamije Madandi, MD, MPH as Director of the Global Malaria Programme, effective 8 April 2023.

Dr Ngamije served as the Rwandan Minister of Health from February 2020 to November 2022. During this time, he led the development and execution of the Health Sector Strategic Plan as well as the development and implementation of the COVID-19 comprehensive response plan.

In a previous role Dr Ngamije served as the National Programme Officer for Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in the WHO Rwanda country office, based in Kigali.

Before that, he spent 10 years (2007-2017) coordinating, for the Rwandan Ministry of Health, the mobilization of resources and implementation of projects funded by multilateral and bilateral partners through the Single Project Implementation Unit (SPIU).

Between 2005 and 2007, he coordinated Rwanda’s National Malaria Control Programme.

Dr Ngamije is the former Co-chair of the Pandemic Fund, a collaborative partnership that finances critical investments to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response capacities at national, regional and global levels, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries.

He is also a member of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), an independent monitoring and accountability body to ensure preparedness for global health crises.

WHO commends Rwanda’s vaccine manufacture step

The Director General of World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Ghebreyesus, has congratulated Rwanda over the shipment of containers of the first BioNTainer- facilities equipped to manufacture a range of mRNA-based vaccines.

On March 13, Rwanda acquired the six ISO-sized shipping containers for the first BioNTainer constructed in Europe aimed at scaling the production of vaccines in Africa.

In a tweet, Ghebreyesus said “Indeed, this is history in making, my brother President Paul Kagame. Thank you for your leadership and commitment to make vaccine equity in Africa a reality!”

Vaccines to be manufactured in this Africa-wide network will be dedicated to people residing in member states of the African Union, with the aim to support access to novel medicines.

Biopharmaceutical New Technologies (BioNTech) is a next-generation immunotherapy company pioneering novel therapies for cancer and other serious diseases.

The company exploits a wide array of computational discovery and therapeutic drug platforms for the rapid development of novel biopharmaceuticals.

BioNTech has been developing and building its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Kigali following its ground-breaking in June 2022.

The facility will be housing the first BioNTainers and is expected to become a node in a decentralized and robust end-to-end manufacturing network in Africa.

The German-based company is still working to build its own manufacturing base in Kigali, where the first BioNTainers will be stationed.

Aside from Kigali, BioNTech says it plans to ship BioNTainers to Senegal and “potentially” South Africa.

Aside from COVID vaccines, BioNTech is also using its mRNA platform to advance malaria and tuberculosis vaccine candidates.

Eventually, BioNTech says it hopes to produce those vaccines with its BioNTainers.

The Kigali site is expected to hire a staff of 100 by 2024. BioNTech has said vaccine production should begin within a year of delivery of the BioNTainers

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