COVID-19 Vaccination
Vaccines save millions of lives every year. There are at least seven different COVID-19 vaccines developed across their different platforms.
How will the COVID-19 vaccine be distributed to poorer countries?
The expense of completely financing the World Health Organisation’s project to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries is currently $27 billion away from their 2021 funding target. The coronavirus pandemic has disturbed livelihoods and claimed the lives of more than two million people worldwide. As it stands, more developed countries have been able to buy more COVID vaccine doses than the less developed countries. The developed countries, such as the United Kingdom, are setting ambitious targets for September. For instance, the British government aims to administer the first doses to all the adults by the end of September. Yet it is a nightmare to developing countries. Hence, the introduction of the COVAX program that wants to deliver vaccines to poorer countries. Countries that can’t afford to buy vaccines will be supported by COVAX. Ghana became the first country to receive vaccines under COVAX.
COVAX is an association that aims to send vaccines to developing countries. It was created by the World Health Organisation and two international companies, the Gavi vaccine alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. Providing two billion vaccine doses to people in 190 countries ensures that at least 20% of the world’s population will be vaccinated. The majority of the findings comes from high-income countries and international organizations/charities like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It will be one of the main ways of distributing the vaccines to poorer countries.
The UK and USA have started regulating the primary shots of Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine. However, in lower-income countries, the wait could be much longer. For example, Pfizer charged the US $19.50 per dose for the first 100 million doses reported by BioNTech. Since the vaccine requires two doses each person will need to spend $39 per person. Whereas Moderna plans to charge from $25 to $37 per dose. However, AstraZeneca is reserving 400 million doses of vaccines for developing countries and plans to sell them between $3 and $5 during the pandemic. Although, there is no guarantee that this option will be available for long.
The Effect Of The Vaccine On The Medical Sector
The recent slew of vaccines made by AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and various government organizations have made headlines - not just because they are going to protect humanity from the dreaded COVID-19 but also because they were made so quickly. Never in history has a vaccine been made with such efficiency - and that is a fact that has decided the fate of many major players in the global medical sector.
After AstraZeneca announced its vaccine, its share price shot to £8900 - just shy of its all-time high of £9100. However as the vaccine is slowly distributed among countries, AstraZeneca's prices continue to slump. A similar case can be seen with Pfizer, when it announced its vaccine in November its share prices shot up. However, as the vaccine is distributed, shareholders have banked on their short-term investments and Pfizer's prices have slumped. It seems medical companies have only received short-lived attention from the public, fading away with the virus.
Although the attention from the public may be momentary, the attention from governments and international bodies is certainly more permanent. After the COVID-19 outbreak, governments and policymakers have realized the benefit of a strong health and welfare sector in their economies. Therefore, an increase in expenditure in the medical sector can be expected over the long term. The vaccine is proof that efficiency in research is possible in the medical sector, and this efficiency can be increased by investing in cutting-edge technology, a highly-skilled workforce, and a centralized distribution mechanism for medicines and healthcare.
Furthermore, the role of private companies in the medical sector has been highlighted because of the vaccine. It was, after all, private hospitals, private pharmaceutical companies, and private distributors who helped in the creation of supply chains for the vaccine. Globally, the private healthcare sector is expected to grow by 11% in the coming two years.
Conclusion
While 2020 was a year of many misfortunes and losses, we are anticipating a promising new year. Thanks to the hard work of researchers, doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers, we are finally finding a way to cure this disease. Looking back we can only learn from our initial mistakes and look forward to a brighter future. Hopefully, we will return to our ‘normality’ soon.
Written by Aidana Assylbek and Rayandev Sen; edited by Alidar Kuatbekov.
