Sanofi and Biovac announced their local manufacturing partnership to produce inactivated polio vaccines (IPV) in Africa. This agreement is designed to enable regional manufacturing of polio vaccines to serve the potential needs of over 40 African countries. This partnership with Sanofi makes Biovac the first African producer of IPV on and for the African continent and supports the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?s ambition to have 60% of local vaccines produced in Africa by 2040.

Sanofi has been a critical partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative since 1988 and has supplied the world and UNICEF with more than 1.5 billion doses of IPV through GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, which aims to vaccinate the populations of more than 70 of the poorest countries on the planet with the aim to eradicate polio. Sanofi will continue to produce the bulk of IPV and Biovac, who will hold the marketing authorization, will be responsible for late-stage formulation, filling, packaging, and delivery of millions of IPV doses to UNICEF for GAVI countries in Africa. Biovac is a leading biotechnology company and a Centre of Excellence, rooted in Africa, specializing in the development and manufacture of vaccines and other biologicals for Africa and beyond.

In collaboration with the South African government, Biovac was established in 2003 to revive local human vaccine development and manufacturing capability in Southern Africa. Polio is a highly contagious disease which mainly affects children under five years of age, who suffer the highest burden of temporary or permanent paralysis and death. Polio is an incurable infection that can only be prevented through immunization.

Infected individuals shed the polio virus in the environment through fecal matter, or through the droplets from a sneeze or cough of an infected person, for several weeks. Almost 90% of infected people have no symptoms or very mild symptoms that usually remain undetected. In others, initial symptoms include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, aching muscles, stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs.

One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis. Over the last 30 years, under the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), 2.5 billion children have been immunized against polio resulting in a 99% reduction in the number of cases worldwide. At the end of 2023, polio was endemic in only two countries (Afghanistan and Pakistan).

As a result of the global effort to eradicate the disease, almost 20 million people have been saved from paralysis.