Even as countries have started rolling out coronavirus vaccines, at least a fifth of the world’s population will not have access to the drugs until 2022, a new study concludes.
Researchers found that the 13 vaccine manufacturers with premarket purchase deals do not have the capacity to produce vaccines for the world’s 7.67 billion people by the end of next year, even in the best case scenario, according to the study published Tuesday in The BMJ, the peer-reviewed medical trade journal published by the British Medical Association.
They estimate the leading vaccine manufacturers could produce enough vaccines to immunize 6 billion people by the end of 2021, falling short about 1.6 billion vaccine courses.
“Even with the unprecedented levels of public financing and the accelerated pace of bringing such vaccines to market, global demand will vastly outstrip available supply during this scale-up period. Intense interest has focused on which countries and when populations will have access to safe and effective vaccine candidates emerging from research and development,” the Johns Hopkins University researchers said in their study.
Higher income countries, including the European Union bloc, have secured deals to purchase 51% of vaccine doses although they only make up less than 14% of the world’s population. Only six of the 13 manufacturers who’ve made vaccine deals have sold to low- and middle-income countries.
AstraZeneca and Oxford University are providing more than two billion doses to low- and middle-income countries while Novavax is offering just over a billion doses. The Russian firm, Gamaleya Research Institute, and Chinese firms SinoVac and CanSino also made deals with lower income countries.
The U.S. had reserved 800 million doses of coronavirus vaccines as of last month and accounts for more than a fifth of COVID-19 cases worldwide with more than 17 million infections recorded as of Thursday.
Meanwhile, Japan, Australia and Canada had secured more than billion doses although these countries combined do not account for even 1% of all COVID-19 cases, the researchers note.
Looking at vaccine deals, the researchers found that Canada has secured 9.5 doses or nearly five vaccine courses per person while the U.S. has reserved a little more than two doses or one course per person.
However, low- to middle-income countries like Brazil and Indonesia have secured less than one course for every two people, meaning not enough to cover even half of their population.
“It’s very alarming to analytically think about the populations that are being left behind. It’s alarming to see the numbers of what this vaccine nationalism has resulted in in terms of supply, so much supply going to so few,” said Kate Elder, senior vaccines policy advisor for Doctors Without Borders’ Access Campaign. “You’re not safe until everybody is safe and that is true. But governments and their leaders seem to think, ’Well, I’m putting my constituents first as much as I can’ and those that can are those that have deep pockets.”
Both the U.S. and Canada started immunizing people this week with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which received federal approval last week from both countries.
The United Kingdom was the first country to approve and roll out the vaccine last week. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have also given the vaccine the greenlight.
As the U.S. launched its vaccination efforts with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine this week, federal regulators gave their pre-approval of another vaccine by Moderna and are expected to grant it emergency use authorization.
While many manufacturers will be busy filling preorders next year, others might be able to provide up to 40% of these vaccines to low- and middle-income countries that have not secured doses, the study says.
“With almost any vaccine, the developing world will lag high income countries in vaccine roll out. This was the case during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic as well. There are mechanisms in place that didn’t exist in the past that will minimize this phenomenon, but it will still occur,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security senior scholar who was not involved in the study.
He added that various organizations and committees are working to ensure that the world is vaccinated, but that some of the vaccines require extreme cold temperatures making it difficult to distribute those doses where electricity isn’t reliable.
Through a vaccine pillar called the COVAX Facility, the World Health Organization (WHO) says it is working on distributing COVID-19 vaccines more equitably.
The vaccine branch, which finances coronavirus vaccine doses for 92 low and middle income countries, intends to cover initially 3% and later 20% of the populations of all countries participating in the international agreement.
The U.S. and Russia have chosen to opt out of the global collaboration.
The COVAX Facility has reserved at least 500 million coronavirus vaccine doses and funding to meet half of its goal of obtaining two billion doses by the end of 2021 to distribute globally.
To increase vaccine access globally, Ms. Elder said governments should put more conditions on public funds given to industries to guarantee scaled up manufacturing and sharing of technology and ideas with other manufacturers.
There are currently 56 candidate vaccines undergoing clinical testing, and another 166 candidates are at preclinical stages, data from the WHO shows.
• Shen Wu Tan can be reached at stan@washingtontimes.com.
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