Maybe. Building takes time, but we had 3 months there between “oh shit” in March (when siting, decision making, and planning could start) and “ok, these vaccines look promising” in June, and another 6 months before they were getting approved. Which is plenty of time to physically ship building materials and production equipment, train local people to use it, and start manufacturing.
Note: I picked Ghana because that’s the name that came to mind, but 5 minutes of reading wikipedia indicates that it’s actually not a bad choice to site a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility. In fact, Gates (or whoever) wouldn’t even need to pay the majority of the costs—just paying the salary of 2-3 experts / coordinators and greasing the wheels to get the deals made, and the Ghana government could pick up the construction & staffing costs (and, thereby, reap the benefits)
Maybe. Building takes time, but we had 3 months there between “oh shit” in March (when siting, decision making, and planning could start) and “ok, these vaccines look promising” in June, and another 6 months before they were getting approved. Which is plenty of time to physically ship building materials and production equipment, train local people to use it, and start manufacturing.
Note: I picked Ghana because that’s the name that came to mind, but 5 minutes of reading wikipedia indicates that it’s actually not a bad choice to site a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility. In fact, Gates (or whoever) wouldn’t even need to pay the majority of the costs—just paying the salary of 2-3 experts / coordinators and greasing the wheels to get the deals made, and the Ghana government could pick up the construction & staffing costs (and, thereby, reap the benefits)