The World Health Organization on Wednesday announced it is expanding its mRNA technology transfer efforts to five additional countries as it works to bolster coronavirus vaccine manufacturing in the Global South, an initiative that seeks to overcome persistent obstruction from the pharmaceutical industry and rich nations.

Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Serbia, and Vietnam will be the newest recipients of mRNA vaccine technology from the WHO’s hub in Cape Town, South Africa, which has succeeded in creating an mRNA-based coronavirus vaccine modeled after Moderna’s shot—the sequence of which was reverse-engineered by Stanford University scientists and published online last year.

“These countries have seen the damage that reliance on the profit-hungry big pharmaceutical corporations has done.”

The nations will be added to the original list of recipients, which included Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia.

“These countries were vetted by a group of experts and proved that they had the capacity […]