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(CNN) – The COVAX Initiative for Equitable Global Access to COVID-19 Vaccines has announced its plan to distribute more than 330 million doses to developing countries in the first half of 2021.
In an interim distribution plan released Wednesday, the COVAX vaccine exchange facility said the doses will cover an average 3.3% of the total population of the 145 countries participating in the initial round of distribution.
The COVAX initiative was launched in April last year to ensure the rapid and equitable distribution of coronavirus vaccines to rich and poor countries alike and the vaccination of high-risk groups.
Led by the World Health Organization and many other international health groups, 190 countries have since joined, but it was rejected by the United States, in part because former President Donald Trump did not want to work with the WHO.
The first round of distribution includes 336 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, 240 million manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and 96 million by AstraZeneca, as well as 1.2 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
But the plan “is not binding and may be subject to change,” and the actual allocation and distribution depend on a series of caveats, from the approval of the WHO emergency use to the willingness of countries to receive and administer the vaccines. , According to the document.
The intermediate forecast would allow countries to begin their immunization strategies, including storage, distribution, databases and how to address concerns about vaccines, said Dale Fisher, an infectious disease specialist at the National University of Singapore.
“If you know that some of the doses will arrive in the next month or two, then it is time to start preparing everything,” he said.
Both vaccines currently in the COVAX initiative require two doses to provide full immunity. Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine must be stored at minus 75 degrees Celsius or minus 103 degrees Fahrenheit. In comparison, AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine can be kept in refrigerator temperatures of 2 ° C to 8 ° C (36 ° F to 46 ° F) for at least six months, which greatly facilitates transportation and distribution, especially in developing countries lacking cold storage capacity.
But the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the only one so far that has gotten emergency use approval from the WHO. An evaluation of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is currently underway.
Delivery of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is estimated to begin in late February, if all requirements are met, per the allocation plan.
“We will soon be able to begin distributing life-saving vaccines around the world, an outcome that we know is essential if we are to have any chance of beating this pandemic,” said Seth Berkley, executive director of the GAVI alliance, which secures vaccines for countries. poor and, together with WHO, is one of the co-directors of the initiative.
According to COVAX, vaccines will be allocated to participating countries in proportion to the size of their population. India, for example, will receive the most: 97 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India.
North Korea is also on the list, as it will receive nearly 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine. Pyongyang claims that the country has not contracted a single case of COVID-19, which experts say is probably not true.
Also included in the initial distribution plan were some wealthy and self-financing countries, such as South Korea, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore.
COVAX aims to deliver up to 2 billion doses of the coronavirus vaccine to least developed countries by the end of this year, enough to inoculate more than 20% of the populations of its member countries.
But there have long been questions about whether it could achieve that goal, due to the challenges of acquiring sufficient funds and supplies.
Developed countries have bought most of the initial doses of available vaccines. But even they have had trouble guaranteeing delivery. The European Union has been embroiled in a public dispute with Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca over alleged delays in vaccine delivery. Last week, the European Commission announced new restrictions that make COVID-19 vaccines manufactured in the block subject to export authorization, although COVAX is excluded from export controls.
Fisher, the expert from the National University of Singapore, said that given the unprecedented scale of the vaccine project, it is likely to encounter certain setbacks.
“I don’t think you will be surprised if there are some communication failures, some unfulfilled expectations and a bit of competition and funding problems,” he said.
“Because it’s just a huge scale of hundreds of millions of – and then billions of – doses trying to reach the arms of 8 billion people during a pandemic. It’s really complicated.”
This story was first published on CNN.com, “COVAX announces plan to distribute more than 330 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine to developing countries.”
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