The vaccine for COVID-19? Rich people stuff. High-income countries have already taken 8.8 billion doses of COVAX
The vaccine for COVID-19 (COVAX, as it is defined) is being defined. Many studies, those of major pharmaceutical companies, are now completing phase 3, after which there are the authorization processes by the various regulators. After that, the marketing will take place.
These days the publication of the document ‘Mapping covid-19 vaccines pre-purchased across the globe’ by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center.
Duke Global Health Innovation Center has calculated that countries will have vaccinated each of their citizens, a few more times before a single person born in poorer countries receives a dose.
Covax? Have rich countries already purchased 3.8 billion doses of vaccine for COVID-19?
Well, from this publication it can be seen that all major income countries (including Italy) and some of the middle-income countries have grabbed a monstrous number of doses of vaccine for the coronavirus.
We are talking about almost 3.8 billion doses already purchased (and have yet to be formally synthesized) and another 5 billion reserved doses.
Duke Global Health Innovation Center has calculated that countries will have vaccinated each of their citizens, several times before a single person born in the poorest countries receives a dose.
When WHO, the World Health Organization, feared the risk of a COVAX only for the rich
WHO began to fear this risk several months ago, and it was the prospect of a sort of international “virtuous alliance”, but in fact, no one has taken it.
According to the calculations made in the study, it is expected that access to vaccine doses from countries with the most devastating economies, many concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, will occur between 2024 and 2025.
This approach is short-sighted on several levels.
Except for the more obvious ethical one, one cannot but consider the economic one: in a global market by definition, having entire slices of the planet “banned” fatally implies a vertical collapse of orders and international business.
Large multinationals of various sectors sell much (but much) more in countries without their own production sectors than in advanced countries where they compete with strongly rooted national companies.
To let human beings die, already forced to live with other serious situations such as epidemics (Ebola, Hiv, and others), more or less declared wars and climate cataclysms, is, therefore, damage precisely for those countries that have contributed to the hoarding of vaccine doses against Covid.