Shot makers vow 2.3b doses to poor nations
ROME, May 23, (AP): A global health summit that underlined the growing disparity between rich and poor countries during the pandemic closed Friday with pledges by pharmaceutical companies to deliver more than 1.3 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to low- and middle-income countries this year.
Italian Premier Mario Draghi, host of the Rome summit that brought together the Group of 20 and the European Union’s executive arm, called the contributions by private companies “significant and staggering.”
The pledges made include 1 billion doses from American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and German company BioNTech’s, 200 million from Johnson & Johnson and 100 million from Moderna. They will be provided at cost for low-income countries and at a low profit for middle-income countries.
Pfizer and BioNTech pledged an additional 1 billion for next year, while European Union nations promised another 100 million doses for this year.
Many of the European deliveries will take place through the UNbacked COVAX program, said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who co-hosted the summit. COVAX aims to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 shots for low-and middle-income countries. Earlier this week, the program suffered a major setback when its biggest supplier, the Serum Institute of India, announced it would likely not export any more vaccines until the end of the year due to COVID-19 crisis on the subcontinent.
The pharmaceutical companies did not specify if their pledges would be fulfilled under any particular umbrella.
But Draghi said the commitments made Friday in some measure reflect “a desire to remediate the injustices and inequities when in the most difficult moments some closed themselves and ignored the rest of the world.”
Both he and von der Leyen expressed confidence that the pledges would be honored.
“These companies have committed their whole reputations to this. It is a very, very important move that really will change the landscape,” Draghi said, adding that international organizations like the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization would have a role in ensuring the commitments.
Von der Leyen said the doses pledged by European countries were carefully considered, “so we feel responsible and accountable.”
As vaccination campaigns continue to progress in the Western world, poorer countries are struggling to acquire supplies. The UN Security Council expressed concern this week about the small number of doses that have reached Africa.
Last week, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged rich countries to donate their vaccines before immunizing younger populations, including children. Experts warn that allowing the virus to spread unchecked anywhere in the world could lead to the emergence of potentially dangerous variants.
During Friday’s global health summit in Rome, Draghi said that nearly 1.5 billion vaccine doses have been administered in over 180 countries worldwide. Yet only 0.3% were in low-income countries, while richer countries administered around 85%.
“The differences in the vaccination rates are staggering,” the Italian leader said. “Not only are these disparities unacceptable, they are also a threat so long as the virus continues to circulate freely around the world it can mutate dangerously and undermine even the most successful vaccination campaign.”
To address inequalities and contain the pandemic, the head of the World Trade Organization said on the eve of the summit that it’s also crucial to diversify vaccine manufacturing and to have more production taking place in Africa and Latin America. The European Union raised many of the same points WTO Director-General Okonjo-Iweala made, specifically looking to increase manufacturing production in Africa.
“Today, Africa imports 99% of its vaccines, and this has to change,” EU executive von der Leyen said. “And therefore, team Europe is launching an initiative with African partners to develop vaccine production in Africa. The initiative will develop a number of regional hubs distributed across the continent and it will draw on the full toolbox of team Europe, including 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) of investment.”
Despite a recent call by the United States to waive COVID-19 vaccine patents as a way to increase supplies, participants at the summit were expected to insist that intellectual property rights were an important tool to boost vaccine production.
There is a lack of consensus among EU countries on a temporary waiver of patent rights for COVID-19 vaccines. EU officials have argued that waiving patents would yield no short-term or intermediate improvement and could even have a negative impact.
Draghi said Italy is open to the idea on the condition that the any waiver measure is “targeted and time-limited and does not undermine incentives for pharmaceutical companies to innovate.”
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TORONTO: Canada’s most populous province is resuming use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, but only as a second dose for those who’d received it initially, officials said Friday.
Ontario and several other provinces stopped giving out first doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca earlier this month on concerns over reported links to rare blood clots, which previously led some European countries to restrict its use.
The Ontario government said that decision was also based on the increased supply of alternative vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna and a downward trend in cases.
The province also has delayed giving second vaccine doses in order to get as many people covered by a first shot as possible. While protocols initially called for a three-week interval, studies found a longer gap often was more effective.
Ontario’s chief medical officer for health, Dr. David Williams, said “informed consent” is needed to get the second dose of AstraZeneca. Those who got the first dose between March 10 and March 19 will be eligible as soon as next week for the second shot.
The government said data from the UK strongly suggests a much-reduced risk of the rare blood cots in second doses of AstraZeneca. Williams said it is one in 600,000.
Ontario has more than 50,000 doses of the vaccine set to expire at the end of the month and officials don’t want to waste them.
The province said nearly a million Ontarians aged 40 and over received the AstraZeneca vaccine as their first dose between March 10 and May 11.
Canada has overtaken the US in the percentage of people with at least one dose, but Canada has only fully vaccinated about 3% of the population. Second doses are expected to be administered for most adults in June and July in Canada.
Canada has relied largely on the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Plans to distribute the first 300,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in Canada remain on hold after Health Canada learned part of them were manufactured at a Maryland facility where the US Food and Drug Administration had uncovered manufacturing violations.