“We have been fighting this virus, but we have been fighting it with rubber bullets,” Kenyan Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe said. “But what we’ve received here is equivalent, metaphorically, to the acquisition of machine guns, bazookas, and tanks to fight the Covid-19.”
Weeks after many richer nations began receiving their first doses, COVAX began last week starting with a delivery to Ghana. Days later, the country’s president became the first to be publicly vaccinated through the program.
“It is important that you set the example that this vaccine is safe by being the first to have it,” Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo said on Monday when she launched a nationwide vaccination campaign.
Ghana and Kenya, as well as Rwanda, Senegal, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are among those who received the first vaccines in recent days as COVAX is deployed across Africa.
COVAX coordinators expect it to change soon as access to developing countries continues to accelerate.
“So far we have delivered 10 million doses to fourteen countries and now we will make at least 10 million more next week and expand the amount from here,” Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, told CNN. “So yes, there are not enough doses and it’s not as fast as we would like. It took us 83 days from the first time in the UK to the first time in Africa, but now we’re leaving to try to get the most out of it out as we can “.
COVAX, led by a coalition that includes Gavi and the World Health Organization, uses donations from governments and multilateral institutions to buy vaccines for poorer countries that cannot afford contracts with major pharmaceutical companies.
The program has secured vaccines from AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech and the Serum Institute of India, in hopes of additional doses from companies currently working to obtain regulatory approvals. But getting enough supplies has been difficult, in part because richer countries demanded more than they needed.
“The original challenge was that initially large orders were placed that closed many doses,” Berkley said.
“It is estimated that there are about 800 million more doses purchased by countries than they need depending on their population and 1.4 billion more options. Therefore, we expect some of these to be given or released instead. by queuing up to make sure we make vaccines available to everyone. ”
Another barrier to the rapid delivery of vaccines to poorer countries may be the reluctance of drug manufacturers to relinquish some intellectual property rights over the vaccines they have created.
“Now is the time to use all the tools to increase production, including licensing and technology transfer and, if necessary, intellectual property exemptions,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a UN coronavirus briefing last week.
“When it comes to the temporary renunciation of intellectual property, we see a lack of cooperation and even serious resistance. I honestly can’t understand it because this pandemic is unprecedented. The virus has taken over the world as a hostage “.
Despite the delays, COVAX aims to make the distribution of vaccines as equitable as possible. Of the more than 180 countries in the program, 92 meet the requirements to receive free or discounted vaccines.