Researchers around the world are working non-stop to develop a new coronavirus vaccine, and the World Health Organization is closely tracking 170 popular vaccines.
Scientists are expressing confidence that an effective vaccine will be developed much sooner than anyone could have hoped when the pandemic first appeared. While there is hope, there is also growing concern that governments will not invest enough to avoid severe shortages in vaccine supplies and are not adequately prepared for the challenges of vaccine distribution.
Analysts estimate that, to date, governments have invested enough money to provide half of the world’s nearly 8 billion people with the required doses of vaccine. Countries are racing to sign supply agreements with pharmaceutical companies, betting on which vaccines will succeed in clinical trials.
Negotiated Plan to Ensure Equitable Development and Distribution of Vaccines
The United States declined to participate in the program, in part because it was led by WHO, which the Trump administration accused of mishandling the outbreak in its early stages.
Countries Sweeping Away the Snow on Their Own Doorsteps
However, the United States is not alone in its wariness of this global initiative. While other countries have a keen interest in discussing the equitable distribution of vaccines, there is a growing distrust among nations that are doing their best to ensure that their citizens do not miss out on any vaccine. The British government has been busy trying to buy as many of the potentially successful vaccines under development as possible.
Last month, Britain announced that it had ordered at least 90 million doses of potentially successful vaccines from overseas companies, and Britons are considering which foreign vaccines they will bet on if their own national vaccine fails. Alok Sharma, the country’s business secretary, said the government must “do everything we can to ensure that the British public has access to a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible.” Like his counterparts in other countries, Sharma fears that if the U.K. doesn’t get out in front, it will lose the race.
So far, the U.K. has signed a total of six deals, adding up to a total of 340 million doses of potentially approved vaccine. A senior U.K. official told VOA, “There will be a global procurement frenzy for vaccines, just as there was a mad rush for personal protective equipment (PPE) and virus testers at the start of the pandemic.” He added, “Our constituents will not forgive us if we don’t secure the supply of vaccines they need.”
Analysts and vaccine experts say the U.K. is not alone in trying to secure vaccine supplies, and it is understandably concerned that opportunities will be taken away from it, especially when shortages inevitably occur due to a lack of production capacity.
Supply shortages
Peter Piot, president of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, recently warned that there won’t be enough glass vials to supply the world with the required doses, saying there is also no output capacity to produce billions of doses of vaccine. “When you hear some politician or public health person say, well, we need to do all these things and next year we will develop a vaccine and we will go back to normal. I don’t think that’s possible.” He said.
Piot, who advises the European Commission, has been cautioning against “vaccine nationalism. But the fact remains that while negotiations continue to find equitable access to vaccines, few governments, especially those with the financial resources to stockpile in advance, are willing to take their chances on equitable distribution in a tense world that has already bought up vaccine stocks ahead of the WHO action.
Earlier this month, Australian opposition figures warned that Australia was lagging far behind some other countries in taking steps to ensure adequate supplies of doses, and that it would have to wait longer than many other countries to get vaccines.
Opposition health spokesman Chris Bowen claimed Australia was “significantly behind” on the vaccine issue, noting that Japan and several other countries have signed supply agreements for vaccines that may be approved for marketing. We haven’t signed one yet,” he said. He added: “We have to engage in discussions, we have to sign agreements, we have to provide funding for research.”
The Canadian government announced Monday that it has signed agreements with two U.S. pharmaceutical companies, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson, to buy up to 114 million doses of a potentially successful vaccine under development. Countries such as India and Japan have also struck deals with Novavax.
Japan also reached an agreement with AstraZeneca to acquire 120 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine to be developed with the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, Kyodo News reported. Japan also reached an agreement with Pfizer to purchase 120 million doses by the end of June next year if Pfizer and its partner BioNTech succeed in developing a coronavirus vaccine, providing 60 million people with the vaccine.
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