Coronavirus pandemic
The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Frustrated by vaccine inequity, a South African lab rushes to replicate Moderna’s shot

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November 28, 2021 at 5:00 a.m. EST
In a pair of warehouses converted into a maze of airlocked, sterile rooms, scientists at the Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines facility in Cape Town, South Africa, are assembling and calibrating the equipment needed to reverse-engineer a coronavirus vaccine. (Jerome Delay/AP)

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — In an industrial area of this seaside city, a little-known biotech company is entering a pivotal phase of making Africa’s first coronavirus vaccine by attempting to replicate Moderna’s highly effective mRNA-based shot.

Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines is racing to make a vaccine because, despite donation pledges, supply is short and just 6 percent of Africa’s 1.2 billion people have been inoculated.