Africa's first messenger RNA vaccine factory was inaugurated Thursday in Rwanda, with the goal of producing treatments for covid-19 and other diseases for millions of the continent's people by early 2024.

The factory installed by the German pharmaceutical laboratory BioNTech in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, is the first of three planned for the African continent.

"This inauguration is a historic step towards vaccine equity," said Rwandan President Paul Kagame at a ceremony attended by World Health Organization (WHO) Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, and other senior officials quoted by Lusa.

Africa is the continent that is least vaccinated against covid-19, with less than 20% of its 1.2 billion people having two doses of vaccine.

The pandemic revealed Africa's enormous dependence on imported vaccines and its technological backwardness compared to Europe, China, and the United States.

"The best way to fight inequality is to put the tools in the hands of those who need them most," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

BioNTech said it plans to employ about 100 Rwandans once the plant is operational and train them to make several new vaccines using the latest mRNA technology.

"The idea is that (...) vaccines for Africans will be produced on the African continent," BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin told AFP news agency.

He assured that the technology deployed in Rwanda - and later in factories in South Africa and Senegal - ensures that vaccines will be produced "with the same quality as anywhere else."

"Why shouldn't Africans have access to the most modern and effective pharmaceutical products? There is no reason for this," he added.

Production will include vaccines for covid-19, but also pioneering treatments currently in development for malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.

Human trials of a BioNTech malaria vaccine using mRNA technology are expected to begin in late 2022.