The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) has finalized a loan of up to $15 million to the Biologicals and Vaccines Institute of South Africa Ltd (Biovac) to support a new multi-vaccine manufacturing facility in Cape Town, according to a press release issued on 24 July 2026. The financing forms part of an expansion program that will raise Biovac’s total annual manufacturing capacity up to 500 million doses. Once complete, Biovac is expected to become Africa’s first end-to-end producer of oral cholera vaccine. It will also produce South Africa’s first locally manufactured inactivated polio vaccine. The project aims to significantly expand Africa’s domestic vaccine production capacity.
Africa currently imports more than 99 percent of the vaccines it uses, even though the continent carries a disproportionate share of the world’s vaccine-preventable disease burden. In response, the African Union aims to produce 60 percent of the continent’s vaccines locally by 2040. For more than two decades, Biovac has served as South Africa’s primary vaccine supplier. The company was established in 2003 in partnership with the South African government to develop local vaccine manufacturing capability. It has delivered more than 450 million vaccine doses to countries across Southern Africa, including COVID-19 vaccines.
The project is projected to create around 340 full-time jobs, with an estimated 43 percent going to women and 30 percent to youths. Biovac already employs more than 300 staff, half of them women. The company will expand training in vaccine manufacturing, quality control, and regulatory science in partnership with local universities and regional institutions. It will produce inactivated polio vaccine through technology-transfer partnerships with Sanofi, the International Vaccine Institute, Biological E Limited, EuBiologics, and Bharat Biotech. The new facility is expected to be completed by 2028.
“This investment in Biovac is about much more than expanding vaccine production capacity. It is about building Africa’s health sovereignty, strengthening regional value chains, and creating industrial capabilities that will enable the continent to respond more effectively to future health emergencies,” said Solomon Quaynor, the Bank Group’s Vice President for Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialisation. Biovac Chief Executive Officer Morena Makhoana welcomed the Bank as a partner in the landmark project. Kennedy Mbekeani, the Bank Group’s Director General for Southern Africa, noted the project targets vaccines that protect children from cholera, polio, pneumonia, and meningitis. The facility will initially produce oral cholera vaccine and subsequently vaccines for polio (IPV), pneumonia (PCV), and meningitis (MenX).
The Bank joins a syndicate of development finance institutions backing the project, led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Support also comes from a long-term quasi-equity facility under the Human Development Accelerator (HDX) program, a European Union-backed initiative implemented by the European Investment Bank in partnership with the Gates Foundation. The expansion plugs into Gavi’s African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA), a $1.2 billion mechanism rewarding African manufacturers with milestone payments upon reaching WHO prequalification. Additional grant funding will support technology transfers to broaden Biovac’s vaccine portfolio. The partnership marks a decisive move to reposition Africa from a consumer of imported vaccines to a producer of critical health solutions.
