19 Dec 2022

President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi wrapped up his working visit to the US city of Houston by engaging with three Batswana trainee scientists studying vaccinology at Baylor College of Medicine.

The three; Messrs Tshepiso Kago, Gaone Matlhare and Tshepiso Chelane are undergoing training in order to be part of the historic exercise of leapfrogging Botswana into vaccine manufacturing.

Botswana Baylor executive director, Prof. Mogomotsi Matshaba said the trio were selected from a number of applicants  for the training programme that would kick-start vaccine manufacturing in Botswana.

He commended the Texas Children Hospital and Botswana Baylor Children’s Clinic for supporting the programme.

Prof.Matshaba said the programme was aimed at building an ecosystem that would support innovation and manufacturing in Botswana.

National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine dean and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital for Vaccine Development, Prof. Peter Hotez said the Batswana scientists were learning three steps of vaccine development to  make them  leaders in the field.

Explaining that he had been involved in vaccine development for many years, Prof.Hotez said his work included making vaccines for various diseases in Africa, mainly the parasitic  kind.

 It was only later that he started working on coronavirus vaccines such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, he said.

Prof.Hotez said so far he was licensed to work with  four vaccine producers, Biological E of  India, Indonesia’s Biopharma and Septa in Bangladesh as well as ImmunityBio and was now working on building capacity in Botswana and South Africa.

In Botswana, he said, the focus was on making COVID vaccine and COVID bivalent boosters with a better safety profile available.

“We are building that capacity in Botswana to do something big to make Botswana a centre of innovation science for Southern Africa and maybe the entire continent,” he said.

Prof.Hotez said they were thrilled to be collaborating with scientists from the University of Botswana and Ministry of Health.

For her part, National School of Tropical Medicines dean, Prof. Maria Bottazzi said the training programme entailed documenting science and framing it in a way that was acceptable for laboratory agencies to interpret.

She said the trainees were taught quality control and assurance as well as regulatory science.

Prof. Bottazzi said Botswana had the potential to innovate, create and develop indigenous vaccines.

“This programme provides a sense of empowerment and programmes are designed to decolonise vaccine sciences by not only teaching or strengthening capacity building, but doing it in a way that trainees could adapt to what was culturally appropriate for their country and the region,” she said.

She said the programme was important for reducing Botswana’s reliance  on multinationals for vaccine supply. ENDS