NEW DELHI (AP) – With Americans, British and Canadians tightening their sleeves to receive coronavirus vaccines, the way out of the pandemic now seems clear to many in the West, even if the launch it will take many months. But for the poorest countries, the road will be much longer and more rugged.
The ambitious initiative known as COVAX created to ensure that everyone has access to COVID-19 vaccines has only reached a fraction of the 2 billion doses it expects to buy over the next year, it has not yet confirmed any real agreement to send vaccines and lack of cash.
The virus that has killed more than 1.6 million people has exposed huge inequalities between countries, as fragile health systems and smaller economies were often more affected. COVAX was created by the World Health Organization, the GAVI and CEPI vaccine alliance, a global coalition to fight epidemics, to prevent the international vaccine attack that has accompanied past outbreaks and would reinforce these imbalances.
But now some experts say the chances of coronavirus shots being shared fairly between rich nations and the rest are fading quickly. With the supply of vaccines currently limited, developed countries, some of which helped fund research with taxpayer money, are under enormous pressure to protect their own populations and buy shots. Meanwhile, some poorer countries that joined the initiative are looking for alternatives because of fears it will not produce.
“They’re simple math,” said Arnaud Bernaert, world head of health at the World Economic Forum. Of the approximately 12 billion doses expected to be produced by the pharmaceutical industry next year, some 9 billion shots have already been reserved for rich countries. “COVAX has not gotten enough doses and the way the situation can develop is that these doses will probably only come quite late.”
So far, COVAX’s only legal and binding agreement is up to 200 million doses, though it includes an option to order the number of additional doses several times, GAVI spokesman James Fulker said. It has agreements for 500 million more vaccines, but they are not legally binding.
The 200 million doses will come from the Serum Institute of India, the company that is likely to do a large part of the coronavirus shots destined for the developing world. CEO Adar Poonawalla says he has a confirmed order for 100 million doses each of a vaccine developed by Oxford and AstraZeneca University and one from Novovax.
“We have nothing beyond that in writing,” he told The Associated Press. “If they want more, they’ll have to place more orders.”
He said COVAX’s lack of commitment would mean a much longer wait for people in developing countries. Poonawalla also noted that his company’s first priority would be to shoot in India, which has suggested it wants at least 300 million vaccines. India may not be able to catch them all at once, but a large order could delay the distribution of vaccines to other parts of the developing world, Poonawalla said.
Asked on Tuesday why the Serum Institute was only hired to produce 200 million vaccines against COVAX, Dr Bruce Aylward of the WHO said he would return to the company “to make sure they have the guarantees they need”. He said the Serum Institute was “absolutely crucial to the supply of many vaccines.”
Potentially, the slowdown in the process is that neither the AstraZeneca vaccine nor Novovax has been authorized by any regulatory body, and that any injection distributed by COVAX will likely need WHO approval. COVAX has no supply of the two vaccines that appear to be the most effective to date: the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna shots. The UK has already started administering the Pfizer vaccine, and the United States and Canada will roll it out this week. Some Gulf countries you have also authorized it.
However, GAVI said that “they aim to start deploying safe and effective vaccines at the COVAX scale (member countries) during the first and second quarters of the new year.”
Even with vaccines on hand, launches will take many months in rich countries and many developing countries face serious logistical challenges that will add to the delays, said Dr. Gagandeep Kang, an infectious disease expert at Christian Medical College of Vellore, South India.
Senior WHO officials have privately acknowledged that attempts to fairly allocate the vaccine through the initiative are flawed, despite publicly praising its success.
“Above all, the call for global solidarity has been lost,” said Dr Katherine O’Brien, WHO’s head of vaccines, during a recent internal debate, which obtained a record from the PA.
When asked to clarify his comments, O’Brien said in an email that “all countries should have access to COVID-19 vaccines as soon as possible.”
In addition to COVAX’s difficulties, O’Brien noted at a news conference this month that $ 5 billion was still needed to buy the doses he plans to get next year.
According to a report issued by GAVI before a meeting this week, the alliance itself concluded that the risk of COVAX failing is “very high”, saying it was “set in record time and must navigate unexplored territories “.
John Nkengasong, director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, criticized Western countries for buying the global supply of vaccines “in excess of their needs, while in Africa we still struggle with COVAX (effort) “.
Without any certainty as to which features would work, governments have been fighting in recent months to sign multiple agreements to ensure their citizens have at least some COVID-19 injections. Canada, for example, bought about 200 million vaccines, enough to cover its population of about 38 million more than five times as many.
Nkengasong defined the idea that people in rich countries would be immunized as long as Africans were left without “a moral problem.”
Beyond ethics, experts point out that failing to protect people in the developing world will leave a coronavirus deposit that could lead to new outbreaks at any time.
Amid fears that COVAX may not meet, some developing countries are withdrawing altogether or seeking their own private agreements. Earlier this month, the small Pacific island nation, Palau, announced it would abandon the initiative and receive donations of U.S. vaccines. Other low- and middle-income countries, such as Malaysia, Peru and Bangladesh, have remained in the initiative, but have also recently signed their own agreements with drug manufacturers as Plan B.
Anban Pillay, of the South African Ministry of Health, said joining COVAX was only a measure of failure before signing bilateral agreements with pharmaceutical companies.
Kate Elder, a vaccine policy adviser for Doctors Without Borders, said that “it increasingly seems that the ship has achieved an equitable distribution of vaccines” – and GAVI, the WHO and others should discuss how to increase vaccine manufacturing .
To this end, South Africa and India have called on the World Trade Organization to waive some provisions governing intellectual property rights to make it easier for manufacturers in poor countries to manufacture COVID-19 drugs and vaccines. . But many rich countries are reluctant to do so.
As more Western countries authorize the vaccine, “the gap between people in rich countries who are vaccinated and the lack of vaccines for the developing world will become quite strong,” said Anna Marriott, head of health policy. Oxfam. “And it will only prolong the pandemic.”
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Cheng reported from Toronto. Associated Press writers Cara Anna in Nairobi; Lori Hinnant in Paris; Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Julhas Alham in Dhaka, Bangladesh; Victoria Milko in Jakarta, Indonesia; Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Krishan Francis in Colombo, Sri Lanka, contributed to this report.
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