PLANT-BASED SOLUTIONS TO ADDRESS THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Africa is highly vulnerable to the current COVID-19 pandemic. While several vaccine and antiviral candidates to prevent
COVID-19 infection are currently under development, they most likely will be expensive, difficult to transport
and distribute to remote areas and not available in sufficient quantities to administer to everyone.
Our solution is to use a plant production platform to generate vaccines, antiviral drugs and other pharmaceutical proteins. We use
our production platform to rapidly make safe vaccines which are stable at ambient temperatures, easy to scale up
and inexpensive. Proteins generated using our virus expression platform can be used for diagnostic testing of
infectious diseases, for vaccine use, and as prophylactics. We have a working prototype which can be adapted
for use in research facilities in Botswana. Our prototypes have undergone successful preliminary analysis.
Our next steps would be to set up this production system in Botswana which would focus on diseases of interest
in the region. We can produce vaccines and other pharmaceutical proteins from these facilities, and work toward
achieving regulatory approval. We would then create the greenhouse facilities needed for mass production. Once in place,
these facilities would be used to generate vaccines and pharmaceuticals for regional diseases such as malaria and HIV,
and some livestock diseases as well.