The European Investment Bank and the European Commission provided a financing package of $110 million to German biotechnology company BioNTech for its messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine manufacturing facility in Rwanda.
The World Health Organization estimates that Africa produces only 1% of the vaccines it uses, making it vulnerable to supply shocks. The European investment is geared toward helping the facility, opened in Rwanda in 2023, to become Africa’s first commercial mRNA vaccine facility. The bank expects the site to produce mRNA vaccines for malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, and mpox. BioNTech co-developed an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 with Pfizer, the first to be approved by major regulators during the pandemic.