KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY THE MINISTER OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION, PROF BLADE NZIMANDE, AT THE 7TH BIO AFRICA CONVENTION, AT THE DURBAN INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION CENTRE, 26 AUGUST 2024

Premier of KwaZulu-Natal, Mphemba, Mr Thami Ntuli;
Deputy Mayor of eThekwini Municipality, Cllr Zandile Myeni;
Acting Director-General of the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), Mr Daan Du Toit;
Chair of BIO Africa, Dr Boitumelo Semete-Makokotlela;
Dr Nhlanhla Msomi, Non-Executive Chairman of Africa Bio and Executive Director of the UKZN Health Consortium;
My special advisor, Mr. Nqaba Nqandela;
Dr Derrick Swartz;
Former Director General of the DSI, Dr. Phil Mjwara;
Director General of the ICGEB, Prof Lawrence Banks;
Esteemed guest speakers;
Participants and distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen:
It is a great pleasure and honour for me to address this prestigious gathering, the 7th BIO Africa Convention, which is also possibly Africa’s biggest bioscience and technology event.
This Convention assumes extraordinary importance because it comes just days after we have signed what is referred to as the Second Presidential Health Compact.
Through this Compact, government, under the leadership of President Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa, seeks to provide a framework for cooperation between critical stakeholders in South Africa’s health sector that significantly contribute to quality health outcomes.
The Compact also has a monitoring and evaluation component where roles and responsibilities are assigned to a broad range of stakeholders to support health systems strengthening to enable the implementation of our country’s National Health Insurance (NHI).
The signing of the Second Presidential Health Compact follows the 2023 Presidential Health Summit, which brought together Government, business, labour, civil society, health professionals, unions, service users, statutory councils, academia, and researchers to develop sustainable and inclusive solutions to the challenges in our country’s health system.
Most critically, this Compact comprises ten (10) key pillars. These are:
a) Developing human resources;
b) Improving access to medicine, vaccines, and health products;
c) Upgrading infrastructure;
d) Private sector engagement;
e) Quality healthcare;
f) Public sector financial management improvements;
g) Governance and leadership;
h) Community engagements;
i) Information systems; and
j) Pandemic preparedness.
Through its call for ‘improving access to medicine, vaccines, and health products’ and ‘developing information systems and pandemic preparedness,’ the Second Presidential Health Compact aligns perfectly with the objectives of our Decadal Plan for Science, Technology, and Innovation, as it relates to health innovation.
Our support for the second Presidential Health Compact is also inspired by our support for the African Union’s efforts to increase the local production of vaccines in Africa from 1% to 60% by 2040. We take this stance for a number of reasons, one being the bitter lessons we learned from the devastating COVID-19 pandemic of 2019-2022.
As you may recall, South Africa, like much of the developing world, found itself at the mercy of grossly inhumane, selfish and outright immoral actions by governments of most industrialised countries monopolising and controlling the flow of life-saving therapeutics and vaccines during that pandemic.
They did this in total contradiction of their sanctimonious and totally hypocritical incantations about human rights, equality and prosperity for all! Our President vowed that this should never happen again and rallied Governments across the continent to build long-term production and developmental capacity.
Later today, I will speak about the DSI’s Vaccine Innovation and Manufacturing Strategy (VIMS) – our response to the clarion call made by our President a few years ago. For the purpose of the deliberations of this opening session, I wish to briefly reflect on the strategic considerations that frame our approach to innovation in the health economy in general and VIMS in particular.
The first point I wish to highlight is the absolute imperative of building an innovation-led health economy supportive of Government’s goal to secure the health and well-being of all its citizens, especially the poor. This requires an industry able to provide security of production and supply of vital vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.
Although we cannot produce all these goods and services within South Africa, we must have security of supply of critical medicines alongside an ability to produce critical vaccines – given our long history in vaccine production. We must also integrate our innovative efforts into that of the African Union and Global South, whilst retaining diversified links into the industrial worlds, with a clear focus on our strategic interests.
The second issue is the need to integrate our health innovation strategies into the wider efforts by Government to reduce gross health inequities which have risen sharply after the 2008-09 global financial crisis, and worsened by COVID-19.
Disparities in vaccine access between high-income and low-to-middle-income countries are merely symptoms of a deeper social problem – that of growing global social inequality. At the same time, we should immediately recognise growing levels of health inequity within South Africa itself - patterns which continue to reinforce and further reproduce other types of racial, class, gender and spatial inequalities.
For this reason, we must target our most promising innovations in health care to support the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme to provide equality of access to all, especially the working class and poor.
The third challenge is to link science, technology and innovation programmes in health to the task of revitalising our economy, specifically to create a vibrant, self-regenerating domestic industrial economy for the health sector. This is absolutely vital. We have the basic elements in place.
We must rally behind domestic firms and enterprises committed to building a local pharmaceutical industry that aligns with government’s goal to radically reduce costs of medicines, expand access, and localise domestic capabilities across all parts of the health care value chain – design, testing, development, production and distribution of locally-produced products and services.
Research and development, to production and distribution, supported by strong incentives for a vaccine manufacturing sector will generate high-skilled employment and drive technological innovation, and ancillary industries especially in cold-chain logistics and transportation.
This we believe will position our country as a leader in the biopharmaceutical industry on the African continent. And this calls for a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to get the levers in place.
The fourth issue is the importance of advancing both basic and applied scientific research. Having our own vaccine manufacturing capabilities must be accompanied by virtuous feedback loops for investment into cutting-edge research and development, potentially leading to breakthroughs not only in vaccines but also in other areas of medicine.
It is for this reason that the DSI is launching a major Presidential PhD Initiative that was announced by the President in December, 2023 around which we hope to mobilise large-scale public and private sector investment in doctoral training.
The fifth issue is the importance of strengthening global partnerships. A sovereign vaccine manufacturing strategy does not mean isolation, but rather, finding our place in a highly inter-dependent global economy to unleash our own ingenuity and making our distinctive contributions to the advancement of global humanity.
We must therefore remain internationalists in our outlook. South Africa can become a strategic partner for global health organisations aligned to our vision of health as a public good and a fundamental human right for all. And we must participate in all global health forums to fight for this vision.
In conclusion, establishing a vaccine manufacturing strategy is not just a matter of public health; it is a strategic imperative that intersects with economic growth, scientific advancement, regional solidarity, and national sovereignty. It is a step towards a more resilient, equitable, and prosperous South Africa.
In the coming months, I intend to submit our Department’s Vaccine Innovation and Manufacturing Strategy to Cabinet for approval. This is to ensure that it becomes a truly national strategy and an integral part of the implementation of the Presidential Health Compact.
Furthermore, we intend to establish dedicated governance and project management capabilities to support the further development and implementation of VIMS. There are a number of people and institutions whose role in the development of our VIMS intervention deserves to be acknowledged.
I therefore wish to take this opportunity to thank Dr Mjwara and Dr Msomi for providing the initial leadership and the South African research and technology and organisations, who conceptualised the proposed catalytic projects for the implementation of VIMS. I also wish to thank my former Special Advisor for his sterling role in supporting VIMS.
It is also pleases me to note that the objectives of the 7th Bio Africa Convention do not just align with our Department’s Decadal Plan, but that they also align with pillars of our country’s recently signed Second Presidential Heath Compact and the Medium Term Develop Plan, as announced by the President during the opening of Parliament.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is therefore my expectation that the deliberations and outcome of this Convention will bolster our efforts to provide quality health care to our citizens and to ensure that we continue to play a meaningful role in strengthening the African continent’s capacity to address its own health priorities.
As we proceed with the business of this convention, we must remember the words of the founding President of our democracy, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, who said “Health cannot be a question of income; it is a fundamental human right.” I wish you a productive Convention and look forward to the outcome of your deliberations.
Thank you.

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