Vaccines - Rich-Poor Divide

World over, many countries have approved one or the other COVID-19 vaccine. India too is doing dry runs to test the entire process end-to-end (transport, storage, delivery, crowd management). From Wikipedia:


Now look at the map of the world based on the transmission of COVID-19, from WHO’s dashboard:


Among the rich countries, there is a very high correlation between authorization of the vaccine and the fact that they’re in community transmission mode.

  1. The other thing you see in these maps is the rich-poor divide on the vaccine:
  2. This was expected, since the rich West had the ability and experience to do the research and trials and they’d obviously prioritize themselves;
  3. mRNA vaccines need between −80 and −60 °C for storage, so they’re not suited for poorer countries;

(Notice South America and Africa, which despite being in community transmission mode, haven’t authorized vaccinations).

 

Approx. 10 billion doses have already been pre-ordered. Most vaccines need 2 doses, so at first sight, this suggests orders for 5 billion people. Unfortunately, no. Since the effectiveness of the vaccines isn’t fully proven (remember, they’re on emergency use basis), many of these orders are really backups i.e., countries are ordering multiple vaccines because, hey, who knows which one will work? Canada, for example, has ordered almost 9 doses of one or the other vaccine for each of its citizens:


All of which is what led to one estimate that “many people in low-income countries might have to wait until 2023 or 2024 for vaccination”.

 

So yes, the hope of the vaccine is for the rich countries, not the poorer ones.

 

India thankfully is the exception, having procured the largest number of pre-orders for any country in the world. How?

“(India) has secured more than 2 billion doses of vaccine, in part by leveraging access to the manufacturing capabilities of the Serum Institute of India in Pune, the world’s largest vaccine maker.”

When it comes to pharmaceuticals, India is the manufacturing hub of the world. It’s why those British vaccines are produced here. It’s why we got to call dibs on half of that production, and it’s what brought down the price of that vaccine.

 

And China? For now, it’s only planning a limited 50 million vaccination campaign. And even that is because of the upcoming Chinese New Year (and the associated domestic travel). Ah, the advantage of getting (and keeping) things under control in the first place.

 

I’ll end with Peru, which sadly or creatively (depending on how you view it) took the step of “volunteering to host clinical trials in exchange for doses”…

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