Maputo, 8 Jan (AIM) – The Manhiça Health Research Center (CISM), in the southern Mozambican province of Maputo, plans to start testing a new vaccine against tuberculosis, using one of the latest technologies developed by Biotech, the German biotechnology company.
According to the director-general of CISM, Francisco Saúte, cited in the Monday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Notícias”, the technology in question was widely and successfully used to produce Pfizer’s immunizer against Covid-19.
“The idea is to use the same technology to develop a vaccine not only against one disease, tuberculosis, but also to combat other pathologies, such as malaria”, Saúte said.
Saúte believes that the growths in health literacy and local socio-economic development have a direct impact not only on the reduction of diseases (tuberculosis, malaria and cholera) but also on the child mortality rate.
According to Saúte, the introduction of genomic surveillance has already brought encouraging results, such as the guarantee that the drug used until now to treat malaria in Mozambique is still effective.
“ With this work, the Health Ministry doesn’t need to worry about changing policies, in terms of changing the line of treatment, as has happened in the past and still happens in some African countries”, he said.
In 2023, he added, CISM attracted very innovative projects for testing new tuberculosis vaccines, one of which “will use completely new technology developed for the Covid-19 vaccine by Biotech, the Pfizer vaccine.”
(AIM)
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