IVI signs deal with Rwanda to host its African headquarters

RWANDA— The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Rwanda to build its African Regional Office in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital.

According to a statement from the ministry, Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana, Rwanda’s Minister of Health, and Dr. Jerome Kim, Director General of IVI, signed the MoU in Kigali.

Rwanda joined the International Vaccine Institute in 2022, an organisation dedicated to discovering, developing, and providing safe, effective, and inexpensive vaccinations for global health.

IVI said that the new office, which will open later this year, will be a focus for global health research, innovation, and collaboration.

The IVI, headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea, was founded in 1997 on the initiative of the United Nations Development Programme.

Its purpose has continued to solve global health issues through vaccine development and dissemination.

The IVI Board of Trustees picked Rwanda to host the regional headquarters after considering offers from five African countries. This move reflects Rwanda’s rising leadership in vaccine manufacture and public health.

Rwanda, in addition to hosting the new IVI regional office, has achieved great advancements in vaccine manufacture by collaborating with German biotechnology company BioNTech.

Rwanda launched BioNTech’s first mRNA vaccine manufacturing factory in Africa in December 2023, marking a significant milestone in the continent’s vaccine production capacity expansion.

Moreover, in June 2023, BioNTech secured up to US$145 million in financing from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to develop an African vaccine production network using sophisticated messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.

This financing will help to produce low-cost vaccines for diseases including malaria, mumps, and tuberculosis, as well as other health risks.

The CEPI’s finances are in addition to the US$90 million allocated by the coalition in September to boost the development of mpox vaccine candidates.

The funding will help to speed the growth of BioNTech’s facility and improve its capacity to create materials for third-party research and clinical trials, in addition to vaccine production.

This plant will be the first mRNA vaccine manufacturing site by a foreign corporation on the African continent, with BioNTech fully supporting its construction with a total investment of US$150 million.

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