Dr Magoola unveils breakthrough Ebola and Mpox vaccines

Under the bright lights of Durban’s convention centre, amid applause from scientists and policymakers gathered for the 4th International Conference on Public Health in Africa, Ugandan biochemist Dr Matthias Magoola made an announcement that may reshape Africa’s medical future.

Standing before delegates from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Magoola revealed that his company, Dei BioPharma, has secured patents for two new mRNA vaccines, one targeting Ebola, the other Mpox (formerly known as monkeypox).

For the first time, he said, these next-generation vaccines had been developed, tested, and owned entirely on African soil.

“Today we move from dependency to self-determination,” Dr Magoola told the audience. “Africa is no longer waiting for solutions—it is creating them.”

For decades, the continent has relied almost entirely on imported medicines and vaccines, often waiting months, even years, for doses produced abroad. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed that dependence in brutal terms: while Western nations stockpiled vaccines, African countries struggled to secure shipments.

Dei BioPharma’s new patents, Magoola said, are a direct response to that history. His company’s Ebola mRNA vaccine uses messenger RNA technology to encode the virus’s glycoprotein within a lipid-nanoparticle formula, a method that allows faster, safer production without the use of live virus.

The same technique underpins the company’s Mpox vaccine, designed for scalability in future outbreaks.

“Unlike conventional vaccines, this platform can be manufactured quickly and locally,” Magoola explained.

“It’s built to respond to emergencies, not to wait for foreign supply chains.” The achievement, he added, is not just about science; it’s about sovereignty. The patents mark a step toward what the Africa CDC calls “health autonomy”: a vision in which the continent designs, produces, and regulates its own medical technologies.

At the heart of this effort is Dei BioPharma’s sprawling manufacturing facility in Matugga, just outside Kampala. Still under development, it is envisioned as Africa’s first fully integrated biopharmaceutical complex, a plant capable of producing everything from vaccines to cancer therapeutics.

The company now hopes to be officially recognized as Africa’s Contract Drug Manufacturing Organization (CDMO), serving governments and public health agencies across the continent.

“We are ready to become the continental CDMO for biologics, vaccines, and mRNA therapeutics,” Magoola said.

“We invite all African nations to rally behind us.” He told delegates that Dei BioPharma could help Africa meet its goal, set by the Africa CDC, to produce 60 per cent of its vaccines locally by 2040.

“We can shorten that timeline to seven years,” he said confidently.

THE PROMISE AND THE PRESSURE

Dr Monica Musenero, Uganda’s minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, attended the same session and echoed Magoola’s urgency.

“If every input, from vials to machines, is imported, are we truly manufacturing?” she asked.

“Without serious investment in research and development, we will never own our progress.” Africa CDC Deputy Director-General Dr Raji Tajudeen agreed, noting that the continent produces “barely one per cent of the vaccines it consumes.”

The pandemic, he said, had been “a wake-up call that cost millions of lives.” Both leaders praised Dei BioPharma’s achievement as a symbol of what’s possible when African scientists are supported to innovate rather than simply administer imported technologies.

FROM PATENTS TO PEOPLE

For Magoola, the twin patents are the culmination of a long journey. Over the past decade, he has positioned Dei BioPharma as one of Africa’s most ambitious biotech firms, filing more than 100 patents across oncology, infectious diseases, and advanced therapeutics.

His team’s focus on RNA-based science has already earned him several international honours, including the African Excellence and Personality Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award in Canada earlier this year.

But his ambitions are not confined to prestige. Magoola says his vision is to reinvest intellectual property value into local economies, training scientists, creating jobs, and keeping profits—and expertise—on the continent.

“This patent is more than scientific recognition,” he said. “It’s continental empowerment.”

The Matugga complex, when completed, will manufacture vaccines for Ebola, Mpox, and potentially Marburg and Lassa fever, diseases that have long haunted parts of Africa but rarely attracted sustained Western investment.

To Magoola, this is not just about curing disease. It’s about rewriting Africa’s place in the global health order.

“Africa has the talent and the need,” he said. “All that has been missing is the belief that we can lead in science. That time has come.”

If his vision holds, future African outbreaks could be met not with emergency flights of vaccines from Europe or the U.S., but with refrigerated trucks rolling out of a factory in Matugga, carrying vials stamped “Made in Uganda.”