Geneva, February 25, 2021 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will meet tomorrow to discuss the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine applicant’s emergency use permit. If the vaccine is approved, Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is urging J&J to send the first shipment to COVAX for low- and middle-income countries, rather than low-income countries. -enter high.
Last week, the Secretary-General of the UN criticized the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines as “wildly unequal and unfair,” noting that 10 high-income countries to date have 75 per cent of vaccines were administered, while more than 130 countries did not receive a single dose vaccine. Under this irrelevant trend, nearly 1.5 billion doses of J&J vaccine are already tied up in advance purchase agreements, the majority of which (56 percent, or 801 million -out of 1.439 billion doses) committed to high-income countries. *
J&J has submitted its vaccine to the World Health Organization (WHO) for emergency use listing, required to supply the COVAX Facility, a global COVID-19 vaccine purchasing device aimed at improving vaccine equivalence. The group has pledged up to 500 million doses of COVAX over the next few years (just 100 million doses in 2021), but the agreement remains a non-binding memorandum of understanding.
The vaccine could be an important tool in the global response to this pandemic – especially in low – resource settings where MSF is active – because unlike the other COVID-19 vaccines that used today, it may require only one dose and may be stored at the standard refrigerator. temperature. Preliminary data from a phase 3 trial also suggest that the vaccine is effective against the 501Y.V2 version of COVID-19, first identified in South Africa. South Africa is thought to be the first country to roll out the single-shot J&J vaccine. The country is currently vaccinating front-end health care workers with the first bags of up to 500,000 free doses put aside by J&J for global clinical trial stocks.
J&J received US $ 1.5 billion from the U.S. government for research and development of its COVID-19 vaccine, and the UK government is co-funding a global clinical trial testing a two-dose program of the vaccine. Since its inception in the pandemic, and as a result of this huge public investment, MSF has demanded that any future COVID-19 vaccines be priced at a cost. J&J has promised a ‘non-profit’ price of $ 10 for emergency use during the pandemic. At a hearing at the U.S. Senate last year, J&J promised that their prices would be reviewed externally, and MSF is asking the corporate body to open its books.
Quote from Dana Gill, US Policy Advisor, MSF Access Initiative:
“We welcome the news that another COVID-19 vaccine license is forthcoming. For this to be truly meaningful in the world response to the pandemic, it is vital that the vaccine is evenly distributed throughout the world, and not just given to the top candidates in the first place. . J&J should provide low- and middle-income countries and fulfill its promise immediately to the COVAX Facility. It is just unfair that most J & J vaccine doses are promised to rich countries that already have large stocks of the other approved vaccines, where vaccines have been on the rise. forward for nearly three months, while low- and middle-income countries, where only one vaccine has taken place, are left at the back of the queue. It is likely that, before the vaccine is approved by WHO for use for the COVAX Facility, richer countries will have to vaccinate most of their priority groups, while health care workers in countries with low- and middle-income still unvaccinated.
MSF saw the devastating impact of the second wave of COVID-19 infections in southern Africa, where an increase in new cases was exacerbated by the likelihood of a more contagious variable overcoming health care facilities. already limited. The J&J vaccine has been shown to be effective against the 501Y.V2 version, but MSF is concerned that if J&J continues with industry norms as usual, the countries most affected by this change will be affected. leaving them again waiting at the back of the queue. . For example, South Africa has the highest rate of this variability in the world and has been an emergency participant in J&J clinical trials, but the country is expected to receive just nine million of the 300 million doses filled in filters and packaged by a local manufacturer. J&J should immediately ensure that South Africa receives, as a minimum, sufficient doses to vaccinate its healthcare workers and high-risk groups, as well as prioritize shipments. to other low- and middle-income countries. ”
- According to data from AirFinity (27 January 2021)