COVAX is one of the most important tools to combat COVID-19—but how’s it going? In a new story by our reporter J.P. Carroll, we take a look at progress so far and what we need to do to ensure vaccines get to everyone who needs them around the world.
After the first delivery to Ghana on February 24, 2021, COVAX has delivered more than 38 million doses of vaccines to more than 100 economies worldwide.
Ultimately, COVAX expects to deliver 2 billion doses in 2021, to cover 20% of the most vulnerable people in 92 poor and middle-income countries.
COVAX remains “the best way” to ensure that equity is “taken into account in global vaccine distribution,” says BIO’s Senior Manager for International Affairs Hilary Stiss.
But while there is much optimism about COVAX and support for its mission, many countries who are a part of it have hedged their bets—purchasing vaccines directly from manufacturers or accepting donated vaccines, as J.P. explains.
Meanwhile, vaccine manufacturers are establishing local manufacturing partnerships.Maryland-based Novavax partnered with the Serum Institute of India Private Limited (SIIPL), which will manufacture the antigen component of Novavax’s COVID‑19 vaccine candidate, and GeoVax in Atlanta has partnered with BravoVax in Wuhan, China to jointly develop a vaccine, as two examples.
What we need now is U.S. leadership in global vaccinations, said a joint letter to President Biden, signed by BIO. “The U.S. must act now to leverage rapidly increasing U.S. domestic vaccine production, export ever-larger volumes of our surplus supplies, and go to work on the massive technical and logistical challenges to vaccine development on a global scale,” says the letter.
What we DON’T need:a waiver on COVID-19 vaccine patents, which is being considered by WTO member countries at this very moment and would “make little difference and could do harm” to the global vaccination effort, the letter continues.
Listen: Why we can and must share vaccines with the world
The bottom line: COVAX is by no means perfect—but both its mission and size are unprecedented. Ensuring that equity remains a central part of the vaccine distribution process is of the utmost importance. No country or person should be limited by economic barriers in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Read the whole thing.
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