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GENEVA: Almost in its 10th month, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on economies and lives around the world.
But while the end of the crisis seems as distant as ever, the truth is that we are approaching a possible tipping point.
World leaders now have a chance to seal the deal in a global framework that places international cooperation above vaccine nationalism to stop the pandemic.
The moment of truth will come at midnight on September 18. That’s the deadline for countries to join the COVID-19 Center for Global Access to Vaccines (COVAX), an initiative launched by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Innovations in preparation. for epidemics.
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COVAX represents the best opportunity we have to provide people in all countries with prompt, fair and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines as soon as they are available.
The initiative has already reached extraordinary scale, with more than 170 countries (representing 70 percent of the world’s population) already signaling their intention to join.
At a time when most countries are experiencing unprecedented crises, governments are eager to find solutions that benefit everyone. Nothing like COVAX has ever been tried, and the short time in which it has been assembled makes it even more remarkable.
If successful, it will be the first time that the international community has come together to ensure equitable and simultaneous access to new pandemic interventions that save lives for rich and poor alike.
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A GLOBAL INSURANCE POLICY
As COVID-19 continues to spread, the global death toll is approaching a million, with monthly economic losses estimated at $ 500 billion.
Under these conditions, ensuring universal and fair access to vaccines is not only the right thing to do. It is also necessary if we want to end the crisis. Until everyone is protected, everyone will remain at risk for the disease, its adverse economic effects, or both.
FILE PHOTO: People wear masks inside the Queen Victoria Market as the city operates under lock and key in response to a COVID-19 outbreak in Melbourne, Australia. (Image AAP / Erik Anderson via Reuters)
As the only truly global approach available, the importance of COVAX cannot be underestimated. Although there are more than 200 COVID-19 vaccines in development and at least 35 clinical trials underway, the vast majority are likely to fail.
Historically, candidate vaccines in the preclinical stage have a less than 10% chance of success. And of those that advance to the clinical trial stage, only about 20 percent will eventually be approved.
Given these odds, even wealthy governments currently negotiating bilateral deals with individual vaccine manufacturers cannot guarantee access to a vaccine on their own.
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Rather, COVAX is specifically designed to maximize your chances of success by investing in the development and manufacture of a large number of candidate vaccines at the same time.
With the world’s largest and most diverse vaccine portfolio, currently comprising nine candidates already in development and nine or more under evaluation, COVAX will act as a global insurance policy.
Under this framework, member countries that have bilateral agreements will still have vaccine access options should those bets fail, and most countries that have no other options will have a critical lifeline.
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WORK CUT FOR COVAX
COVAX’s initial goal is to have two billion doses of vaccines available by the end of 2021, as that should be enough to protect vulnerable / high-risk populations and front-line healthcare workers.
But to reach that goal, we first need the legally binding commitments of as many countries as possible.
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FILE PHOTO: A photo of a June 24, 2020 brochure received from the biotech company IDT Biologika in Dessau-Rosslau, Germany, on July 28, 2020, shows a single dose of the SARS-CoV-filled candidate vaccine -two. Hartmut Boesener / IDT Biologika / Brochure via Reuters
After the registration deadline of September 18, the priority will be to complete the development and testing process to ensure that all upcoming vaccines are effective and safe.
COVAX will need to establish agreements with drug manufacturers so that it can begin to distribute vaccines on a large scale as soon as they are approved. And donor funds will be needed to subsidize the purchase of vaccines for low- and lower-middle-income countries.
But even with financial solutions in place, the vaccine distribution process will pose significant challenges. The COVID-19 vaccine delivery will be the largest vaccine deployment the world has ever seen, and will have to be executed at a time when misinformation (the “infodemic”) threatens to undermine public confidence in vaccine safety. .
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Although the pandemic is far from over, at least we have a global solution in sight. COVAX represents the best hope we have to end the crisis quickly.
When people look back and marvel at how quickly the scientific community and development professionals responded to the threat of COVID-19, they will be able to point to the speed with which governments sidestep national interests in the name of the international cooperation and solidarity.
Whatever specific time historians of the future choose as the tipping point of the pandemic, there will be little doubt that the creation and widespread adoption of the COVAX framework played an indispensable role in ending it.
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Seth Berkley is CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Richard Hatchett is Executive Director of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. Soumya Swaminathan is chief scientist at the World Health Organization.
