Paris – The development of new COVID-19 vaccines will fail to eradicate the pandemic if not all countries receive doses in a speedy and equitable way, disease experts warned Saturday.
As several countries consider enforcing vaccine licenses when international travel begins, the authors of an open letter published in the medical journal Lancet said that the collection of vaccine stocks in richer countries would only lead to a global health crisis .
They warned that “vaccine nationality” could leave a COVAX campaign aimed at getting vaccines to low- and middle-income countries and they are severely deficient in dosage for several years to come.
“The strong truth is that the world now needs more doses of COVID-19 vaccines than any other vaccine in history to provide enough vaccination for global vaccine immunity,” said lead author Olivier Wouters from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
“If vaccines are not distributed more equitably, it could be years before the coronavirus is brought under global control. ”
Despite more than two dozen COVID-19 vaccines either being developed or approved for use, lower-income countries still face significant challenges in obtaining vaccines and delivering them to populations. crowds.
These include a lack of money to buy vaccines, as well as poor infrastructure for their transport and storage – especially as the mRNA vaccines currently on the market need to be kept very cold. during delivery.
And despite unprecedented public and private investment in vaccine development and supply, COVAX estimates it will need an additional $ 6.8 billion in 2021 to secure supply for 92 developing countries.
Based on available sales figures, the authors stated that rich countries representing 16% of the world’s population had already received 70% of vaccine doses – enough to satisfy all their own citizens. defended several times.
“By receiving large quantities of vaccines in this way countries are putting a broad vaccine in their own numbers ahead of the vaccination of health care workers and high-risk numbers in poor countries,” said co-author Mark Jit from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The letter calls on manufacturers to accelerate the transfer of technology to developing countries to help them make doses at home, as well as price controls for what was meant by “overpriced” vaccines on the market. current market.
The authors said that vaccines developed by China, India and Russia, once authorized by the World Health Organization, could be of great help to poor countries as their supply and storage increased. simple the US and European alternatives.
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