There have been a lot of questions lately about the COVID-19 vaccine supply chain and when vaccines will be distributed. To help us understand what’s happening and why, we spoke with Phyllis Arthur, BIO’s VP for Infectious Disease and Diagnostics Policy, for an exclusive look inside the vaccine supply chain.
Ongoing supply issues are to be expected, given unprecedented demand for COVID-19 vaccines and the complexities of manufacturing them.
Development has gone quickly, but manufacturing biologics is a uniquely delicate process requiring consistency in quality control. “The currently available COVID-19 vaccines do not contain any live material, but you still have all the different rules of the manufacturing process,” explained Phyllis Arthur, BIO’s VP for Infectious Diseases and Diagnostics Policy.
For example, mRNA vaccines need to be kept at extremely cold temperatures. The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine must be stored at -70 degrees Celsius, and the Moderna vaccine at -20 degrees Celsius. These temperature requirements must be factored into the quality control process.
There’s also a conflation of supply chain management and vaccine distribution. To a large extent, this is a challenge with communicating and managing expectations regarding vaccine distribution, rather than one of supply chains.
What many in the public perceive as delays in production are actually ongoing challenges in distribution. “Companies are making doses as quickly as they can in three shifts over 24 hours,” said Arthur, delivering “30 to 40 million doses a month.” This is an entirely separate issue from distribution in the states.
It’s also important to understand failures in integrating equity into the decision-making process. “Some states skipped some of the populations in the [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] recommendations where communities of color were a focus,” explained Arthur. “So, if you skipped the essential worker category and went from frontline workers immediately to 65+, you skipped the equity issue that was embedded inside why essential workers were put at the front of the line. They were put at the front of the line for several reasons: One, they are essential. Two, those jobs are predominantly held by Black and brown people who cannot work from home.”
Want to know more about the development of COVID-19 vaccines? Visit www.COVIDVaccineFacts.org.
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