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Why the citizens of the world should care
Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca have announced that their vaccine candidates are effective in protecting against COVID-19. Bahrain, the UK, Canada, the US and Mexico have already approved the use of the Pfizer vaccine in their countries, and it seems certain that the Moderna vaccine will soon follow suit.
While this is all good news in the global health community as the world seeks to end the COVID-19 pandemic, it also raises the question: Why are there so many vaccines in development? And is it better to have more?
Aurélia Nguyen, CEO of the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX), has the answers.
“At an early stage in this pandemic, it quickly became clear that to end this global crisis we not only need COVID-19 vaccines, we must also ensure that everyone in the world has access to them,” Nguyen told Global Citizen. .
The solution, she says, is COVAX, a vaccine initiative co-led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Coalition for Innovation in Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI).
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Prior to working for the COVAX Facility, Nguyen was the Managing Director of Vaccines and Sustainability at Gavi, where she worked to find ways to support financially sustainable vaccine programs and markets and, essentially, increase delivery of lifesaving vaccines.
Prior to that, he worked for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), where he led the development of GSK’s policies on access to medicines and vaccines in the developing world. He has also done research for the WHO on medical policy and has a master’s degree in health policy, planning and financing from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the London School of Economics.
In short, you are the perfect person for the job of ensuring equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine.
“COVAX has the largest and most diverse COVID-19 vaccine portfolio in the world and as such represents the world’s best hope of bringing the acute phase of this pandemic to a rapid end,” Nguyen said, adding that COVAX involves almost 90% of the world’s governments.
Right now, COVAX has secured three promising vaccine candidates, but Nguyen says the goal is to have more in its portfolio.
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“To achieve our goal of ending the acute stage of the pandemic by the end of 2021, we will need as many candidate vaccines as possible for use in a variety of populations and settings,” he said.
The ideal situation for COVAX would be to have several types of vaccines insured through different manufacturers and supply chains.
“This will also require global manufacturers to step up and commit to this vision of equitable access. The dangers of not doing so, for the whole world, and the effect of this pandemic on public health, economies, commerce, travel, communities and people, are clear ”, he added.
Given the huge demand for the vaccine around the world, Nguyen says COVAX will need several types of vaccines.
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“Not everyone will have the same storage requirements,” he said. “In fact, most vaccines in development, if successful, will require a regular cold chain infrastructure, which Gavi has spent the past two decades expanding and updating in low-income countries.”
The cold chain involves storing and transporting vaccines at specific temperatures, which can become ineffective if they get too hot, throughout the supply chain; this requires intensive logistical planning in addition to cold and thermal packaging methods.
“Delivering a vaccine that needs to be transported and stored in extremely cold temperatures, or an ultra-cold chain, presents challenges in terms of additional costs and infrastructure to ensure that it can be distributed effectively. This is especially the case in low- and middle-income economies, ”Nguyen said.
But she says COVAX is ready to help countries should they need it.
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And while that presents quite a challenge, it is not without precedent: Nguyen notes that the Ebola vaccine, which requires a cold chain infrastructure, was successfully rolled out in 2018 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
“The country, with Gavi’s support, was still able to vaccinate more than 300,000 people during the recent Ebola outbreak in the eastern part of the country, helping to end the second worst Ebola epidemic in history,” he explained. .
That’s why Nguyen says this type of mass delivery is feasible, but cautions that it is enormously complex and will require international teams to work together with new technology, such as cold storage devices that can keep vaccines at ultra-cold temperatures, without the need for electricity.
Launched in April by seven global partners, ACT-Accelerator is a unique coalition aimed at accelerating global efforts against the COVID-19 pandemic. Its members are working together to develop tests, treatments and vaccines as quickly as possible, while strengthening the world’s most fragile health systems.
But the organization desperately needs financial support from governments around the world. You can join us in asking world leaders to fund the ACT-Accelerator by taking action here.
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