The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced a $40 million investment to assist African manufacturers in producing new messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines.

Announced by the foundation during the annual Grand Challenges meeting in Dakar, Senegal, the commitment aims to improve vaccine equity on the continent, where people were among the last to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. The investment includes $5 million each to Institut Pasteur in Dakar and Biovac in South Africa to use an mRNA research and manufacturing platform developed by Belgium-based Quantoom Biosciences, as well as $20 million to Quantoom “to further advance the technology and lower costs.” The remaining $10 million is earmarked for companies yet to be named.

While COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were fast-tracked through the regulatory process and granted emergency use authorization, new vaccines under development in Africa will be subject to a longer development timeline of between three and seven years.

“What we want is next time there is a pandemic—we hope it won’t happen soon—Africa would be able to make its own vaccine, to contribute to the development, and make sure that we protect the population,” Institut Pasteur CEO Amadou Sall told the Associated Press. “What happened with COVID should never happen again in the sense that Africans should get vaccinated as a matter of equity.”

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