COVID Vaccines To Reach Poorest Countries in 2023 -- Despite Recent Pledges (nature.com) 55
Most people in the poorest countries will need to wait another two years before they are vaccinated against COVID-19, researchers have told Nature. From a report: Around 11 billion doses are needed to fully vaccinate 70% of the world's population against COVID-19. As of 4 July, 3.2 billion doses had been administered. At the current vaccination rate, this will increase to around six billion doses by the end of the year, researchers from the International Monetary Fund, based in Washington DC, project. But so far, more than 80% of the doses have gone to people in high-income and upper-middle-income countries. Only 1% of people in low-income countries have been given at least one dose, according to the website Our World in Data.
Last month, the leaders of the G7 group of wealthy nations pledged extra doses for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) by the end of 2022, at a summit in Cornwall, UK. The centrepiece was a promise from US President Joe Biden to donate 500 million doses of the vaccine made by pharmaceutical company Pfizer of New York City and biotechnology company BioNTech in Mainz, Germany. This is in addition to 87.5 million previously pledged. The United Kingdom pledged 100 million, and France, Germany and Japan have pledged around 30 million each.
Last month, the leaders of the G7 group of wealthy nations pledged extra doses for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) by the end of 2022, at a summit in Cornwall, UK. The centrepiece was a promise from US President Joe Biden to donate 500 million doses of the vaccine made by pharmaceutical company Pfizer of New York City and biotechnology company BioNTech in Mainz, Germany. This is in addition to 87.5 million previously pledged. The United Kingdom pledged 100 million, and France, Germany and Japan have pledged around 30 million each.
Re: The cure is worse than the disease for the poo (Score:1)
IDK sounds more like a broken/obsolete economic system than the pandemic causing their hardships. Expect climate chanhe to be 100x worse if we're still using late 20th century global economic policies.
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The cure is already worse than the disease for poor countries.
Perhaps. But vaccines cure both problems. Vaccines prevent Covid and also end the lockdowns and economic fallout.
A rapid rollout is in our own self-interest. If the rollout in poor countries is slow, the disease will mutate, perhaps enough that current vaccines are ineffective, and we could end up doing it all over again.
Astraya (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Astraya (Score:3)
Fuck all cunts getting the jab here in Australia. I should translate for non-Australians. "Fuck all" means there is none or hardly any. I'm not saying to fuck everyone getting the jab. Hah
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"Divided by a common language" (Score:2)
That is the way anybody would read it in US English but I'm pretty sure it's not what the poster meant.
They don't need donations of doses. (Score:5, Interesting)
They need production facilities.
When it became clear that Pfizer was working great and the AZ rollout was a trainwreck, Pfizer started work on a new facility in Europe and a couple months later dramatically increased out production capacity. This is needed all over the world For initial shots, for boosters, and then - down the road - for other mRNA treatments. It's not like Africa has a shortage of diseases that need vaccines.
Re: They don't need donations of doses. (Score:1)
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I'm sure companies like the Serum Institute could do final mixing / bottling / distribution at the very least. As far as I'm aware there's no Indian companies with experience mass producing and extracting specific DNA plasmids and then using them to breed (and then isolate) mRNA, at industrial scales, though. And while I'm sure the lipid encapsulation process could be implemented by any competent Indian biotech firm, I'm sure Pfizer doesn't want to share the precise details of their process.
The Serum Insti
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Novavax is a good vaccine, BTW, at least judging from the Phase 3 results. After accounting for the fact that its Phase 3 trials were run while there were variants of concern circulating and Pfizer's weren't, Novavax's efficacy is probably up there with Pfizer's, or at least close. Lower side effects, cheaper to produce, and easier to store. More primitive technology, but hey, if it works...
Re: They don't need donations of doses. (Score:2)
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Adenovirus based vaccines are easier to make and cheaper, but much lower efficacy. India and other countries are making that variety now.
Re: They don't need donations of doses. (Score:1)
Re: They don't need donations of doses. (Score:4, Interesting)
There are a lot of bottlenecks to the new mRNA vaccines. With virtually unlimited funding, it took a year and half to get to the current level of production in the most advanced countries on the planet. Do you think less advanced nations could make the same equipment, skilled technicians, matured processes, etc in the same amount of time? Even if handed every blueprint, process manual and formula?
Mind, with every available manufacturer or technician already gainfully employed, you need to dismantle the current production ramping capability, distribute it and then try to parallelize the process in countries with zero experience with this type of vaccine. That'd easily double the amount of time to vaccinate the planet. Probably longer.
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No they couldn't.
The RNA vaccines are an entirely different process. India *will* start manufacturing RNA vaccine sometime in the future, but up until this point, and probably for a while yet, the current manufacturers are taking up the entire capacity.
Your conspiracy theories are silly.
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And whats your plan for the next pandemic? Because Pfizer-BioNTech wouldn't be bothering again, thats for sure. And neither will anyone else.
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Why not?
Guaranteed purchases of everything you can manufacture plus a liability shield? Other businesses could only fantasize about getting a deal like that.
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The original posts approach was “deny Pfizer-BioNTech their profits” and as a result India being able to manufacture the vaccine, which means invalidating patents and trade secrets etc, so its basically a shit deal for Pfiser-BioNTech, not a good one.
I think your intention is very different to the one BytePusher puts forward - thry are basically gutting any reason for a for-profit entity to conduct any research or development in future.
Re: They don't need donations of doses. (Score:1)
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Well, it won't be fast, but if we start now we have a better chance of having the capacity in place for the next pandemic. There will be one.
Need Money (Score:2)
It's not like Africa has a shortage of diseases that need vaccines.
No, but it has a shortage of money to pay for those vaccines to be developed and then produced. Commercial drug research is always going to focus on the diseases and problems afflicting those with the largest bank balances. Just look at how at least some of these companies extort money from rich countries - and even the well-behaved companies are only one takeover or new CEO from becoming just as bad. They can't do that to poor countries because they simply don't have the money to pay....and frankly soon n
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They need production facilities.
Building vaccine production facility in Somalia is entirely different challenge from building one in Europe. More so, people in Somalia are not stupid and would not trust vaccines produced there. Similar situation in Russia - they have very low uptake of vaccines because nobody trusts the process.
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Build on ships. Sail to where needed.
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In the US we are going to be almost to 2022 before we are fully vaccinated. This is due not only to general anti-vax, but also the belief that COVID poses no danger to kids, so parents are not going to get adolescents vaccinated before school starts, and will only be motivated when the 10,000 kids who have died in the US already becomes 100,000. I am sure we will
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This is due not only to general anti-vax, but also the belief that COVID poses no danger to kids, so parents are not going to get adolescents vaccinated before school starts, and will only be motivated when the 10,000 kids who have died in the US already becomes 100,000. I am sure we will see in the comments justification for not vaccinated kids.
I'm very pro-vax, but bullshitting people will do nothing to gain trust. 10,000 kids certainly have not died from COVID. CDC says 326 in the 17 and under cohort. Even the 18-29 group is nowhere close. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/... [cdc.gov]
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the belief that COVID poses no danger to kids, so parents are not going to get adolescents vaccinated before school starts, and will only be motivated when the 10,000 kids who have died in the US already becomes 100,000.
This is true in some places. However, in the California Bay Area, 48% [sfchronicle.com] of kids 12-17 had already gotten their first dose within the first three weeks of availability. In Marin County, that figure was 70%. My guess is that local teenage vaccination rates will very closely mirror local adult rates. From what I see in my area, most parents are eager to get their kids vaccinated primarily because that means a big step toward normal life, regardless of what they might think about the actual efficacy of the va
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We will never be fully vaccinated.
We'll just have to hope the people who choose to avoid getting vaccinated don't help develop a vaccine resistant strain.
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COVID would be a poor choice if you wanted a virus to kill a lot of people. Despite all the hype, COVID wasn't the highest killer in any country. Even in India it is the #7 cause of death. People are insane. If you want to kill people, change their diet to a Western diet so they die of heart disease and diabetes. And give them tobacco. That will kill them much faster than COVID.
Long term it might kill more of them. But it certainly won't do it faster than COVID could.
Re: Not seeing the problem (Score:2)
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The concept of being pro-abortion is to do with the fact that a woman (who may have gotten preganant without her consent) has to nourish a featus for 9 months possibly at a mental or health risk to herself, and that cells at early development shouldn't be considered full sentient life. There's many more arguments with great nueance than I can convey here. The argument rarely is "death is cool, let's have more of that". Have a look at the Venn Diagrams of pro-choice and anti-death penalty for example.
Also yo
Edit (Score:2)
(edit : There's many more arguments with *greater* nueance than I can convey here) - Slashdot, how's that edit button coming along?
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> Ahh then, so you are in favor of killing off the mentally unstable, such as the homeless or undeveloped native people.
None of that even remotely flows from what I said, not even if taken to extremes.
> More humane to the richer countries to just let the poor nations fare on their own and reduce population
You know foreign aid isn't something done out of pure alturism. Having stable countries to trade with is much better for rich nations than having war torn countries with fleeing refugees, or countrie
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Covid doesn't affect Africa and other poor regions that much.
These countries have a younger population, who is less susceptible to the most serious form of the disease. And they have so many other problems that covid is way down the list, the population is young for a reason...
"at the current rate" (Score:2)
Linear extrapolation is certainly the easiest thing to do. Meanwhile in the real world, vaccine production is still increasing every day, vaccine distribution too. In the first few months the US sucked up the lion's share of the supply, then that started going to Canada and Europe. Once they're having trouble giving it away it will flood the next tier of countries and so on. It doesn't matter how many doses the politicos announce, everyone making COVID vaccines are going to continue churning them out as fas
Scarcity is a bitch (Score:1)
And it always gets the weak before it gets the strong.
What I also find dismaying, besides the fact that there aren't enough vaccines to go around, is the inability of people to comprehend this fact of scarcity.
I keep reading about how the west supposedly "hoarded" vaccines as if we're sitting on a pile of them that we just wont share, when in fact what happened is we have a pile of promises that we've made to deliver vaccines from factories that in some cases aren't even operational to produce vacci
Re: Scarcity is a bitch (Score:2)