It’s been just three months since the first COVID-19 vaccines were authorised by the WHO for emergency use globally. By 8 April, 61 of 92 eligible lower income countries had received 38 million doses funded through the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC). The launch of the COVAX initiative has been a great success of international cooperation, but now it is also clear that the limited manufacturing capacity is a real challenge. An EIU forecast report published in January estimated that vaccines would not reach most of the poorer economies until 2023 or even 2024. What’s more, vaccine manufacturing is unevenly distributed across the world, leaving even rich countries such as Australia, Canada and some EU countries, with severely reduced vaccine supplies. As a result, increasing regional manufacturing capacity is seen as a priority by regulators and policymakers in Europe and elsewhere.
In the last few months different proposals have emerged from multilateral organisations such as the World Trade Organisation and the World Health Organization, as well as academics, researchers and public campaigns suggesting a range of solutions. These include high income countries sharing excess doses, pharmaceutical companies waiving intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines and/or facilitating knowhow and technology transfer to set up manufacturing facilities in different regions such as Africa and South America. This will not only increase vaccine production in the short term but will also improve global epidemic preparedness in the long term.
The world faces two questions: what are the costs if the vaccination rollout is delayed until 2024? And what will it take to make these proposals work?
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