Push to bring virus vaccines to the poor faces trouble
7.8 billion people. Countries takingpart in theproject can either buy vaccines from Covax or get them for free, if needed.
One early problem that has emerged: Some of the world’s wealthiest nations have negotiated their own deals directly with drug companies, meaning they don’t need to participate in the endeavor at all. China, Russia and the U. S. have said they do not intend to join. Other countries, including France and Germany, will technically join Covax but won’t procure vaccines for their citizens via the initiative.
Not only that, but firm agreements with Covax came in too late to prevent more than half of all potential doses being snapped up by countries representing 13% of the world’s population, according to an Oxfam study.
“As a continent of 1.2 billion people, we still have concerns,” Africa Centers for Disease Control andPre--
vention director John Nkeng a song said Thursday.
He praised Covax for the solidarity it represents but said there are serious questions about allocation, saying African nations’ envoys are meeting directly with vaccine manufacturers to ask “if we came to the table with money, how would we get enough vaccines to cover the gap?”
The European Union has contributed 400 million euros ($469 million) to support Covax, but the 27- country bloc won’t use Covax to buy vaccines. Instead, the EU has signed its own deals to buy more than 1 billion doses, after some member states raised concerns about what was described as Gavi’s “dictatorship” approach to running Covax.
Gavi, WHO and CEPI announced in September that countries representing twothirds of the world’s population had joined Covax, but they acknowledged they still need about $300 million more from governments or other sources. By the end of next year, Gavi estimates the project will need $5 billion more.
Covax did reach a major agreement this week for 200 million doses from the Indian vaccine maker Serum Institute, though the company made clear that a large portion of those will go to people in India.
Covax said negotiations to secure vaccines are moving forward despite the lack of funds.
Gavi’s Aurelia Nguyen, managing director of Covax, said that nothing similar has ever been attempted in public health.
Covax “is a hugely ambitious project,” she said, “but it is the only plan on the table to end the pandemic across the world.”
Still, the project is facing doubts and questions from poor countries and activists over how itwill operate and how effective it will be.
Dr. Clemens Auer, who sits on WHO’s executive board and was the EU’s lead negotiator for its vaccine deals, said there is a troubling lack of transparency about how Covax will work.
“We would have no say over the vaccines, the price, the quality, the technical platform or the risks,” Auer said. “This is totally unacceptable.”
He said WHO never consulted countries about its proposed vaccine strategy and called the health agency’s goal of vaccinating the world’s most vulnerable people before anyone else a “noble notion” but politically naive.