Johnson & Johnson announced the completion of a landmark agreement between Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and manufacturer Aspen SA Operations (Pty) Ltd, based in South Africa, to enable the first COVID-19 vaccine to be manufactured and made available by an African company for people living in Africa, with the goal of increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates across the continent.
Expanding global vaccination coverage is critically important to controlling the COVID-19 pandemic and reducing the risk of emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants. Currently, only about 12 percent of people in Africa are fully vaccinated, which is well below the World Health Organization’s target of 70 percent population coverage for all countries.
Our response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been guided by the conviction that unless everyone is safe, no one is safe, which is why we worked to develop and deliver a vaccine that can protect the health of everyone, everywhere.