OECD urges rich nations to share vaccines to even-up growth

‘A leading international economic watchdog urged developed countries to put more effort into providing low-income countries with coronavirus vaccines in order to ensure that the global recovery from the pandemic is more even.

‘In its latest assessment of the state of the global economy, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Tuesday that the global recovery from the shock of the pandemic is faster than it anticipated a year ago. Though the global economy has more than recouped the 3.4% output lost in 2020, it cautioned that the recovery is “uneven.”

Read here (Associated Press, Sept 21, 2021)

The fight to manufacture Covid vaccines in lower-income countries

‘Instead of holding out for today’s popular vaccines, some researchers hope that those in clinical trials will be easier to license and make in the global south. At the top of the list are protein-subunit vaccines, in which peptides matching those from SARS-CoV-2 teach the immune system to recognize the virus and fight it off. Researchers say the benefit of such vaccines is that vats of yeast or insect cells can churn out huge quantities of peptides, making the vaccines scalable. They add that many companies are familiar with the process because they produce vaccines for other diseases and recombinant drugs in a similar fashion.’

Read here (Nature, Sept 15, 2021)

How the pandemic now ends: Ed Yong

‘Pandemics end. But this one is not yet over, and especially not globally. Just 16 percent of the world’s population is fully vaccinated. Many countries, where barely 1 percent of people have received a single dose, are “in for a tough year of either lockdowns or catastrophic epidemics,” Adam Kucharski, the infectious-disease modeler, told me. The U.S. and the U.K. are further along the path to endemicity, “but they’re not there yet, and that last slog is often the toughest,” he added. “I have limited sympathy for people who are arguing over small measures in rich countries when we have uncontrolled epidemics in large parts of the world.”

‘Eventually, humanity will enter into a tenuous peace with the coronavirus. COVID-19 outbreaks will be rarer and smaller, but could still occur once enough immunologically naive babies are born. Adults might need boosters once immunity wanes substantially, but based on current data, that won’t happen for at least two years. And even then, “I have a lot of faith in the immune system,” Marion Pepper, the immunologist, said. “People may get colds, but we’ll have enough redundancies that we’ll still be largely protected against severe disease.” The bigger concern is that new variants might evolve that can escape our current immune defenses—an event that becomes more likely the more the coronavirus is allowed to spread. “That’s what keeps me up at night,” Georgetown’s Shweta Bansal told me.

‘To guard against that possibility, the world needs to stay alert. Regular testing of healthy people can tell us where the virus might be surging back.’

Read here (The Atlantic, August 12, 2021)

China takes the lead at international forum tackling Covid-19 vaccine inequality

‘Foreign Minister Wang Yi pledges more technology transfers and production agreements to get vaccines to developing countries. The UN estimates 11 billion more doses are needed to vaccinate 70 per cent of the world’s population against the disease.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, August 6, 2021)

10 Covid-19 vaccine vexations to ponder on – P Gunasegaram

‘It’s a rather trying time for all of us, and many are the aspects of the pandemic in Malaysia that remain unanswered despite frequent questions from the public. Today, we will focus on 10 Covid-19 vaccination vexations. There are more, but the 10 main ones will do for now.

1. Why were we late to vaccinate people?
2. What will be the total cost of vaccination?
3. Is there a breakdown?
4. Are middlemen involved, and who are they?
5. Are mega vaccination centres necessary, how much do they cost, and are they sources of infection?
6. Are there alternative distribution channels, and why were they not used?
7. Are migrant workers being vaccinated?
8. What about undocumented workers?
9. Is there a black market for vaccines?
10. Why are people getting blank jabs?

Read here (The Vibes, July 22, 2021)

The Covid-19 vaccine: Lessons and challenges

‘The rapid deployment of vaccines is key in accelerating the return to normalcy... As policymakers vaccinate their populations against an ever-changing COVID-19, they’re discovering numerous challenges along the way. In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey partners Lieven Van der Veken and Tania Zulu Holt share insights on progress and lessons learned so far, and how to help get the vaccine distributed as quickly and safely as possible. An edited transcript of their conversation follows.’

Listen here (McKinsey & Co, Apr 9, 2021)

Greed is the problem, not the solution, for vaccine woes

‘On the anniversary of the United Kingdom’s first lockdown of the coronavirus pandemic, as candles were lit in doorways and the country mourned 125,000 deaths, the prime minister was in the mood for gloating. “The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed my friends,” Boris Johnson reportedly told Conservative MPs, before pleading “forget I said that”.

‘The AstraZeneca jab was actually developed by scientists from the University of Oxford, a publicly-funded institution, working with scientists from a range of backgrounds, including many educated in state schools. Those scientists had initially wanted to make their vaccine patent-free, before AstraZeneca entered the scene, effectively privatising the research.

‘The vaccines have been brought to market thanks to tens of thousands of trial volunteers who risked their health by putting themselves forward, not out of greed, but out of a desire to end this pandemic and help their families and communities. And the rollout is being managed by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), a world-class public healthcare system that, despite market-driven reforms in recent years, exists entirely outside the logic of the market.

‘Greed, however, drove Big Pharma companies to privatise vaccines developed with public resources, and patent lifesaving medicines, in an effort to keep a grip on their monopolies. As a result, pharmaceutical giants sold these jabs almost exclusively to rich countries, allowing the UK to secure enough doses to vaccinate its population three times over.’

Read here (Aljazeera, Mar 24, 2021)

BioNTech and Fosun Pharma form Covid-19 vaccine strategic alliance in China

• BioNTech and Fosun Pharma will jointly conduct clinical trials of BNT162 in China, leveraging BioNTech’s proprietary mRNA vaccine technology and Fosun Pharma’s clinical development and commercialization capabilities in China
• Fosun Pharma will commercialize the vaccine in China upon regulatory approval, with BioNTech retaining full rights to develop and commercialize the vaccine in the rest of the world
• Fosun Pharma will pay BioNTech up to USD 135M (EUR 120M) in upfront and potential future investment and milestone payments; the two companies will share future gross profits from the sale of the vaccine in China

Read here (BioNTech press statement, Mar 16, 2021)

WHO approves J&J's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency listing

‘The World Health Organization on Friday (Mar 12) approved the emergency listing of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine, giving its seal of approval to expedite use especially in countries with weaker regulatory agencies. It is the third COVID-19 vaccine after the two-shot regimens of Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca to receive backing from the WHO, and the first requiring just a single injection.’

Read here (Channel News Asia, Mar 13, 2021)

India’s Covid vaccine rollout ‘rescued the world’: Top US scientist

‘Dr Peter Hotez, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston during a recent webinar said that the two mRNA vaccines may not impact the world's low- and middle-income countries, but India's vaccines, made in collaboration with universities across the world such as BCM and the Oxford University, have "rescued the world" and its contributions must not be underestimated.

‘During the webinar, "Covid-19: Vaccination and Potential Return to Normalcy - If and When", Dr Hotez, an internationally-recognised physician-scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development, said that the Covid-19 vaccine rollout is "India's gift'' to the world in combating the virus.

‘India's drugs regulator gave emergency use authorisation to Covishield, produced by Pune-based Serum Institute of India after securing licence from British pharma company AstraZeneca, and Covaxin, indigenously developed jointly by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech and Indian Council of Medical Research scientists.’

Read here (India Today, Mar 7, 2021)

From Pfizer to Moderna: Who's making billions from Covid-19 vaccines?

‘Among the biggest winners will be Moderna and Pfizer – two very different US pharma firms which are both charging more than $30 per person for the protection of their two-dose vaccines. While Moderna was founded just 11 years ago, has never made a profit and employed just 830 staff pre-pandemic, Pfizer traces its roots back to 1849, made a net profit of $9.6bn last year and employs nearly 80,000 staff.

‘But other drugmakers, such as the British-Swedish AstraZeneca and the US pharma Johnson & Johnson, have pledged to provide their vaccines on a not-for-profit basis until the pandemic comes to an end.’

Also carried in this story are: Sinovac, Sputnik V, Novavax, CureVac 

Read here (The Guardian, Mar 6, 2021)

China ships millions of Covid-19 vaccines to poor nations abroad; denies ‘vaccine diplomacy’

‘China's vaccine diplomacy campaign has been a surprising success: It has pledged roughly half a billion doses of its vaccines to more than 45 countries, according to a country-by-country tally by The Associated Press. With just four of China's many vaccine makers claiming they are able to produce at least 2.6 billion doses this year, a large part of the world's population will end up inoculated not with the fancy Western vaccines boasting headline-grabbing efficacy rates, but with China's humble, traditionally made shots.

‘Amid a dearth of public data on China's vaccines, hesitations over their efficacy and safety are still pervasive in the countries depending on them, along with concerns about what China might want in return for deliveries. Nonetheless, inoculations with Chinese vaccines already have begun in more than 25 countries, and the Chinese shots have been delivered to another 11, according to the AP tally, based on independent reporting in those countries along with government and company announcements.’

Read here (CP24, Mar 2, 2021)

China approves two more domestic Covid-19 vaccines for public use

‘China’s medical products regulator said on Thursday that it had approved two more COVID-19 vaccines for public use, raising the number of domestically produced vaccines that can be used in China to four. The two newly cleared vaccines are made by CanSino Biologics Inc (CanSinoBIO) and Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, an affiliate of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm).

‘They join a vaccine from Sinovac Biotech approved earlier this month, and another from Sinopharm’s Beijing unit approved last year.

‘Prior to formal approval for wider public use by the National Medical Products Administration, millions of doses of the two Sinopharm vaccines and Sinovac shot had been administered in China’s vaccination program. The program targets select groups of people facing a higher risk of infection.’

Read here (Reuters, Feb 25, 2021)

The scientist who’s been right about Covid-19 vaccines predicts what’s next

‘[Hilda] Bastian — an expert in analyzing clinical trial data, founding member of the Cochrane Collaboration, and a former National Institutes of Health official — has gone down rabbit holes before. There was the time she traveled the US on her own dime to research and take historical photos for a Wikipedia list of African American mathematicians.

‘But her obsession with vaccines in this pandemic has been especially fruitful: She’s called the race right at just about every turn...

‘Nearly a year into her project, I caught up with Bastian to ask where our blind spots are now and how she predicts the vaccine story — and the pandemic — will unfold. She talked about the need for health officials to acknowledge that coronavirus vaccines have potentially “big differences in efficacy and adverse events,” a time in the future when we may need Covid-19 vaccine boosters every year, and the problem of people in rich countries like the US shamelessly hogging vaccines.’

Read here (Vox, Feb 24, 2021)

Covid vaccines: G7 increase support for Covax scheme

‘G7 leaders have pledged to intensify co-operation on Covid-19 and increase their contribution to the Covax vaccine-sharing initiative. In a joint statement released after a virtual summit on Friday, G7 leaders raised their overall commitment to $7.5bn (£5.3bn). Wealthy countries are facing growing pressure to make sure lower-income nations get fair access to vaccines.’

Read here (BBC, Feb 20, 2021)

Rich nations stockpiling a billion more COVID-19 shots than needed: Report

‘Rich countries are on course to have over a billion more doses of COVID-19 vaccines than they need, leaving poorer nations scrambling for leftover supplies as the world seeks to curb the coronavirus pandemic, a report by anti-poverty campaigners found on Friday. In an analysis of current supply deals for COVID-19 vaccines, the ONE Campaign said wealthy countries, such as the United States and Britain, should share the excess doses to “supercharge” a fully global response to the pandemic.

‘The advocacy group, which campaigns against poverty and preventable diseases, said a failure to do so would deny billions of people essential protection from the COVID-19-causing virus and likely prolong the pandemic. The report looked specifically at contracts with the five leading COVID-19 vaccine makers - Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax.’

Read here (Reuters, Feb 19, 2021)

‘Wildly unfair’: UN boss says 10 nations used 75% of all vaccines

‘The United Nations chief has sharply criticised the “wildly uneven and unfair” distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, pointing out that just 10 countries have administered 75 percent of all vaccinations. Addressing a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Antonio Guterres said 130 countries have not received a single dose of vaccine.’

Read here (Aljazeera, Feb 17, 2021)

Intellectual property cause of death, genocide

‘Refusal to temporarily suspend several World Trade Organization (WTO) intellectual property (IP) provisions to enable much faster and broader progress in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic should be grounds for International Criminal Court prosecution for genocide. 

‘Making life-saving vaccines, medicines and equipment available, freely or affordably, has been crucial for containing the spread of many infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV-AIDS, polio and smallpox. 

‘Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, insisted that it remain patent free. Asked who owned the patent 65 years ago, he replied, “The people I would say. There is no patent. You might as well ask, could you patent the sun?”

Read here (ksjomo.org, Feb 8, 2020)

China, Russia steal a vaccine diplomacy march

‘Russia and China are rising to the rich versus poor challenge by supplying much-needed vaccines to nations that would otherwise be far down on the global list. While the US and EU remain preoccupied with their own Covid-19 problems, Russian and Chinese companies are forming partnerships with each other and countries around the world.

‘That “vaccine diplomacy” success, however, is already starting to raise concerns in the West. Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, originally poo-pooed in the West as a mere publicity stunt by President Vladimir Putin, has not only proved to be one of the most effective vaccines – providing over 90% protection – but also is inexpensive and easy to use...

‘Until recently, China’s vaccine industry was considered a relatively minor player on the international scene. But the race to develop and deploy Covid-19 vaccines has provided China the impetus to massively upgrade its capacities while establishing itself as a major global supplier. 

‘Covid-19 vaccines by at least four Chinese producers are in final, Phase III trials in a dozen countries, with more in the pipeline. More importantly, the two presently leading Chinese vaccines, produced by the Sinovac and Sinopharm companies, have already been administered to many millions of people in emergency vaccination campaigns in the developing world.’ 

Read here (Asia Times, Feb 8, 2021)

Pfizer withdraws vaccine application in India [after failing to present needed information to experts]

‘Pfizer Inc says it has withdrawn its application for emergency use of its COVID-19 vaccine in India. The company said Friday that it participated in a meeting of experts of the drug regulator on Feb. 3. Based on the deliberation of that meeting and “our understanding of additional information that the regulator may need, the company has decided to withdraw its application at this time,” it said in a statement.

‘The company was the first to approach the Indian regulator in December for its messenger RNA vaccine that it has developed with Germany’s BioNTech. They were closely followed by applications for two other vaccines --- a version of the AstraZeneca made by Serum Institute of India and another by Indian company Bharat Biotech -- which eventually got the nod for emergency use on Jan. 3. However, India’s Health Ministry has said that Pfizer hadn’t made its presentation to experts who needed to clear the vaccine, before the regulator could green-light its use in India.’

Read here (The Independent, Feb 6, 2021)