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TWO drug companies announced this month that their coronavirus vaccines have been found to be 95 percent effective. They hope to get approval soon to begin distribution.
Once approved for use by the public, the next question is how to get vaccinated. The “how” refers to how the vaccine will get to the public and by how much, because the discovery of the vaccine is only the first big step. There are other obstacles that will follow before you and your family can protect yourself from the Sars-CoV-2 that causes coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
It is important to follow the message of the People’s Vaccine coalition of health and humanitarian organizations that there should be no monopolies on the vaccine and that companies should ensure that the vaccine is sold at affordable prices, taking into account any public funding that is available. have provided them. . The coalition includes Oxfam International, Amnesty International and a group from the United Nations.
Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna Inc. have announced the effectiveness of their own Covid-19 vaccine candidates made from the same technology that uses fragments of the coronavirus genetic code to train the body to recognize if the real virus appears, an associated press. the report said.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said they will soon formally request US regulators to allow emergency use of the vaccine. They will also send the vaccine to regulators in Europe, the UK and Canada. So will Pfizer’s competitor Moderna Inc., which has developed its own vaccine candidate.
Dr. Ugur Sahin, head and co-founder of BioNTech, said that initial supplies will be scarce and rationed. As supply grows, companies have a responsibility to help ensure access for lower-income countries as well, Sahin said. Pfizer and BioNTech said they expect to produce up to 50 million doses of vaccines globally in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.
The “People’s Vaccine” coalition is concerned that only a fraction of the world’s population will actually have access to the vaccine by the end of 2021 and that almost all will be in rich countries.
Filipinos will be far down the list of vaccine recipients if ability to pay is the only consideration. Government negotiations with other countries for part of the supply are, at best, exploratory. That is why the allocation to countries should be based on need and not on ability to pay where we will end up being the losers. Health workers and risk groups should be prioritized. Marginalized groups, the poor, and those living in slums or crowded areas where distancing is not possible should also be included among the recipients.
For pharmaceutical companies, there should be a pool of resources and technology shared with the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 Technology Access Group for the rest of the world to benefit from the discovery of the vaccine.
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