US biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong has opened a plant in Cape Town that will be the first in Africa to produce Covid-19 vaccines from start to finish, AFP reports.

The factory should churn out its first vials of second-generation coronavirus vaccine “within the year” and produce a billion doses annually by 2025, said Soon-Shiong.

The plant will be South Africa's third Covid vaccine manufacturing facility but the first in the continent to make the formula across every stage, rather than producing it from semi-finished batches.