In race for vaccines, rich nations bag biggest deals
NEWDELHI: At least 4.4 billion doses of 10 Covid-19 vaccines under development have already been put on pre-orders, with wealthy countries having leapfrogged the rest of the world in securing supply commitments, a recent report by Nature has said.
This, the report added, could leave low- and middle-income countries such as India with longer waiting list for shots for their populations.
There are 31 vaccine candidates in human trials, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Draft Landscape compilation.
The United States has secured 800 million doses from six manufacturers, UK has purchased 340 million, and the European Union nations and Japan have struck deals for hundreds of millions, the report said, citing data from scientific information and analytics firm Airfinity.
While developed economies have already committed an undisclosed amount of money as upfront payment for the producers, developing nations are likely to need to depend on an international effort led by WHO called Covax.
In the case of the Oxford-astrazeneca vaccine, which is largely considered the one at the most advanced stage of testing and thus possibly the first to reach conclusive results, almost 2.4 billion doses have been purchased by various countries (including an international effort involving developing nations).
This 2.4 billion is of the 2.94 billion supply capacity estimated till 2021, according to the report.
In India’s case, however, vaccine supplies may be helped by the fact that some of the world’s biggest vaccine-makers are based in the country. Officials of Serum Institute of India (SII) have indicated at least half of their promised deliveries by the end of the year may be kept aside for India, and that the government could invoke further emergency clauses to secure more doses.
WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing on August 18 that the world must prevent “vaccine nationalism”.
Nature quoted Mark Feinberg, the head of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative in New York: “We’re not going to get rid of the pandemic until we get rid of it everywhere”.