Day: November 24, 2022

JOHANNESBURG, Nov 24 (NNN-SANEWS) — South African-based bio-pharmaceutical company, Biovac, has concluded a ground-breaking licensing and technology transfer agreement to manufacture an oral cholera vaccine (OCV).

According to a statement released on Wednesday, this is a partnership with the International Vaccine Institute (IVI), a non-profit international organisation headquartered in South Korea.

“The project is significant for Biovac as it enables drug substance manufacturing capability to be built, that is, production of the antigen or raw material needed to manufacture actual vaccines,” the company said.

“This is one of the remaining steps in the vaccine manufacturing value chain that is currently missing, not only at Biovac but across the African vaccine manufacturing landscape.”

The company, which is partly owned by the South African government, said the agreement comes at a time when cholera outbreaks are wreaking havoc on fragile health systems in Pakistan, Nigeria and Malawi.

“This places additional demand on already-limited supply of cholera vaccines globally.”

According to Biovac, the extent of recent cholera outbreaks has escalated while there has been an increasing gap between supply and demand for cholera vaccines.

The partnership with IVI aims to licence and transfer technology to increase production volumes to reduce the critical shortage of vaccines needed to prevent cholera globally.

Biovac believes that after many decades, this will be a critical step forward for vaccine production in Africa.  

“This is in a market in Africa where less than 1% of vaccines are locally manufactured and where infectious diseases are still the leading cause of death, especially in children under five years.”

The agreement is underpinned by collective support of R120 million ($6.9 million) from Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the first phase of the project.

This will allow Biovac to expand its capabilities from filling and packaging of vaccine vials to end-to-end vaccine product development and drug substance manufacture.

Biovac CEO, Dr Morena Makhoana, said the COVID-19 pandemic exposed Africa’s lack of local production capacity.

“It became clear that increasing self-sufficiency is important if Africa is to have better control over its own public health and vaccine supply chains.”

For African vaccine manufacture to be sustainable, Makhoana said the continent needs to ensure that research and development, technology transfers, scale-up, drug substance manufacture and licensing all take place on African soil.

“This initiative will be the beginning of end-to-end vaccine manufacture at Biovac, while at the same time addressing an ongoing and increasing cholera disease burden globally.”

The technology transfer process will commence in January 2023, with the first clinical trial batches expected to be produced in 2024.

Meanwhile, the licensing of the product by the South African National Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) is expected to be concluded in 2026 alongside World Health Organisation (WHO) prequalification certification.

“Through this and other projects, Biovac plans to attain WHO pre-qualification. We will then be well placed to supply United Nations agencies such as WHO and UNICEF/GAVI as many African countries and other least developed countries source their vaccines through this mechanism.”

The Director of IVI’s Cholera Program, Dr Julia Lynch, said the IVI’s technical know-how and required materials to produce OCV have been transferred to four different manufacturers to date.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

PRETORIA— Police Minister Bheki Cele has once again raised concern at South Africa’s alarming rate of crimes against women and children.

This after Quarter 2 of 2022 crime statistics saw a double-digit percentage increase for murder, attempted murder and assault GBH [grievous bodily harm] against women. The Minister on Wednesday released the statistics, which reflected the country’s crime trends between July and September 2022.

Addressing media, Cele said the rate at which women are abused, violated and killed in South Africa remains worrying and unacceptable.

“Many are killed by the people they know, people they love and trust,” he said.

In the reporting period, Cele revealed that over 13, 000 women were victims of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

While 1,277women were victims of attempted murder, 989 women were murdered during this reporting period.

Over the three months, the Minister said over 10,000 rape cases were opened with the South African Police Service (SAPS).

“From a sample of 8,227 rape incidents that were perused, it was determined that 5,083,which is 62%, of these incidents occurred at the residence of the victims or perpetrators. [A total of] 1,651 of the rape incidents occurred at public places such as streets, parks and beaches,” the Minister said.

At least 69 people were raped at abandoned buildings.

The Minister said Mpumalanga was the only province to report a decrease in rape incidents.

“Inanda police station in KwaZulu-Natal, Mthatha in the Eastern Cape and Delft in the Western Cape are the three top stations with the highest rape cases.

“Buses, taxis, trains and other modes of public transport were the third most likely places of occurrence for rape incidents,” Cele said.

The Minister said the statistics were indicative of communities that continue to fail to protect children.

Shockingly, in just six months, 558 children were killed in South Africa between April to September 2022.

In this regard, Cele said police were investigating 294 attempted murder dockets opened between July and September 2022.

A total of 1,895 assault GBH cases, with children as victims, were opened with the police during this reporting period.

“It is on this note that the SAPS continues to prioritise gender-based violence (GBV) related crimes,” said the Minister.

Between July and September this year, the FCS [Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences] unit arrested 4,375 perpetrators of crimes committed against women and children.

“Police traced and arrested 410 rapists during this reporting period. Sixty-eight of them have been sentenced to life behind bars,” Cele said.

Cele said the Ministry remains extremely concerned about rape at educational premises.

Over the three-month reporting period, 83 rapes occurred at educational facilities, including schools and tertiary institutions.

“One needs to take into cognizance that educational facilities refer to the scene of the crime and should not be interpreted to imply that all perpetrators and or victims were pupils or students,” he said. 

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Voter Registration this weekend for wards to be contested in municipal ward by-elections

Voter registration will be held this weekend for two municipal ward by-elections scheduled to take place on Wednesday, 8 February 2023 

Voting stations in the wards listed below will be open this Saturday, 26 November 2022 and Sunday, 27 November 2022, from 08h00 to 17h00 to allow all eligible voters to register and for current voters to check their registration details and to provide/update address details where necessary. 

Voters should take their identity document (ID) with them – either a green barcoded ID book, a smartcard ID, or a valid Temporary ID Certificate. They will also need to complete their physical home address on registration or provide sufficient particularities of their place of residence. Documented proof of address (e.g. a municipal account) is not required. 

Voters may also check and update their details at their local (municipal) Electoral Commission (IEC) office weekdays during office hours. 

Voters are reminded that it is a criminal offence to register and vote in a ward in which they are not ordinarily resident. 

Special voting will take place at voting stations as well as through home visits on 07 February 2023 between 08h00 and 17h00. Voters wishing to apply to cast a special vote can apply at their local IEC office during office hours between 16 January and 20 January 2022.

Applications for special votes can also be made online via the IEC’s website, www.elections.org.za(link is external). Once voters have applied online they will receive an SMS notifying them of the outcome when their application has been processed. They can also check the status of their special vote application online at www.elections.org.za(link is external).

Voters can also apply for special votes via cellphone by SMSing their identity number to 32249 (charged at R1). The SMS application facility is only available for those applying to cast a special vote at their voting station and NOT for home visits.

For more information on these by-elections contact your local (municipal) IEC office weekdays during office hours. Contact details for all IEC offices are available on the IEC website at www.elections.org.za(link is external) under Contact Us.

Although South Africa no longer has COVID-19 restrictions in place, the Electoral Commission will continue to provide the following to safeguard voters and electoral staff:

•  Face masks for voluntary use by electoral staff

•  Hand sanitizers at voting stations and home visits

Voters are no longer required to wear masks or face coverings within a voting station, although they may continue to do so at their discretion. Similarly, voters are no longer required to sanitise their hands on entry to voting stations, but may do so if they wish.

Source: Government of South Africa

The Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu, will host the Mozambique’s Public Works, Housing and Water Resources Minister, Carlos Mesquita to strengthen bilateral relations and cooperation on the management of shared water resources on 24 and 25 November 2022 in Malelane, in the Nkomazi Local Municipality, Mpumalanga Province.

The delegations will visit the Driekoppies Dam and associated projects in the afternoon of 24 November 2022 and then engage in discussions which will culminate in the signing of a joint statement on the cooperation on 25 November 2022.

Source: Government of South Africa

The Gauteng Legislature will hold a prayer session at the Westonaria Banqueting Hall on Friday, 25 November 2022 to launch its 16 Days of Activism for no Violence Against Women & Children.

The 16 Days campaign raises awareness and GPL invites citizens of Gauteng as partners in fighting the injustice and abuse of the rights of Women, Children, People with Disability & the LGBTIQ+ community under the theme “ It begins with me; end gender-based violence for a peaceful Gauteng”.

Source: Government of South Africa