Analysis of the contracts that countries are signing with vaccine manufacturers for the advance booking of candidates shows that the agreements are still fluid, changing in a matter of days, with some companies winning and others losing orders, given that most of the candidates are still in the testing stage.
Among vaccine manufacturers, orders with Oxford-Astrazeneca fell by more than 30 million doses to 2.47 billion, compared with 2.5 billion as of November 30, while the Pfizer vaccine- BioNTech, the only one given to people so far, received an additional 73.2 million orders to touch 719 million as of Dec. 11. Moderna saw new deals for 29 million doses.
However, both Oxford and India are at the top of the table. While Oxford still has orders for the largest number of doses, India, as an individual country, has contracts for the majority with the EU region alone, with 85 million more doses ahead.
Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute, the maker of Sputnik-V, lost orders for 153 million doses, including 100 million doses from India. In India, Dr. Reddy’s lab, based in Hyderabad, is conducting local tests for Sputnik-V.
Oscillating offers
TOI has been tracking the launch and scale speedometer, which so far has the most comprehensive data on global deals with regular updates. The data showed that, compared to November 30, total vaccine doses for which contracts existed increased by 171 million as of December 4, before falling to the current level.
As of December 4, Oxford-Astrazeneca still had contracts for its 2.5 billion doses, while India had yet to secure 1.6 billion. Pfizer had seen a slight jump from 646 million on November 30 to 656 million doses before crossing the 700 million mark according to the December 11 analysis. And Gamaleya’s order had actually increased slightly from the 300 million it had at the end of last month.
Do not affect India
While no immediate reasons were found for the Sputnik V deal to be off the table, experts TOI spoke with said the drop in numbers will not affect India’s vaccination plans.
“Right now, the plans indicate that we would need around 600 million doses for the first phases (two doses each) and there are more candidate vaccines entering the trials,” said an expert advising the government.
India’s health secretary, Rajesh Bhushan, had indicated at a press conference last week that the country plans to inoculate around 30 million people in the first three rounds – 3 million million first-line and healthcare workers. and around 27 million people with comorbidities older than 50 years.
On December 1, Dr. Reddy’s lab had said that it had obtained clearance for phase 2/3 clinical trials, and experts indicated that obtaining this candidate could occur in the future.
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