A global program to supply vaccine to poorer countries plans to ship over 300 million doses by June 30.
Workers at a Serum Institute of India vaccine plant in Pune, India, packed trays of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine in January.
Workers at a Serum Institute of India vaccine plant in Pune, India, packed trays of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine in January.Credit…Atul Loke for The New York Times
An international program to supply Covid-19 vaccines at low or no cost to countries around the world plans to deliver more than 300 million doses by June 30, it said on Wednesday.
But even with that help, many of the world’s poorest countries are likely to lag far behind in vaccinating their citizens, and may not be able to mount any large-scale effort this year.
Scientists say that could leave the entire world, even people in widely vaccinated countries, more vulnerable, at a time when worrisome new variants of the virus are cropping up and spreading worldwide.
The assistance program, known as Covax, was set up by international organizations to try to counteract “vaccine nationalism” and ensure that the scramble for vaccines among rich countries did not leave poorer nations out in the cold.
Covax said on Wednesday that it hoped to ship 336 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine to 145 countries in the first half of the year, with shipments to begin late this month or early in March. The vaccine deliveries would be among the first to reach low- and middle-income countries.
Some 96 million of the doses would come directly from AstraZeneca, Covax said, and the rest from the Serum Institute of India. The program said that close to 100 million doses of the total would be delivered by the end of March.
Covax cautioned that its figures and delivery dates were “indicative” estimates, based on what manufacturers had said would be available. Production hiccups and other problems could result in lower deliveries.
In addition to the AstraZeneca doses, Covax plans to supply a much smaller number, around 1.2 million, of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the first quarter of the year, according to Seth Berkley, chief executive of the GAVI Alliance, the organization that leads the Covax program.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine requires storage at extremely cold temperatures, so those shipments will go to just 18 countries, selected for their ability to meet those requirements. By the end of the year, Covax expects to ship 40 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Along with the GAVI Alliance, the partners in the Covax program include the World Health Organization, Unicef and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. Covax has raised pledges of $6 billion, including $4 billion from the United States, with a goal of supplying up to 2 billion doses to low- and middle-income nations by the end of 2021.
The executive director of Unicef, Henrietta Fore, said on Wednesday that Unicef had reached a long-term agreement on Covax’s behalf with the Serum Institute of India for up to 1.1 billion doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine and one developed by Novavax. The agreement, which extends beyond 2021, would supply vaccine to around 100 low-and middle-income countries for about $3 a dose.
“This is a great value for Covax donors,” she said, showing how the program “can negotiate in bulk for the best possible deals.”
— Nick C******-Bruce The New York Times