Concerns over covid19 vaccine availability

Leaked internal documents of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, suggest concerns about whether and how quickly countries participating in the Covax facility will be able to access vaccines. The documents suggest that some countries may not receive vaccines until 2024.

The Covax programme is the main global scheme to vaccinate people in poor and middle-income countries against the coronavirus. Its aim is to deliver at least two billion vaccine doses by the end of 2021 to cover 20 per cent of the most vulnerable people in 91 countries.

Trinidad and Tobago is among 11 Caribbean countries in the Pan American Health Organization's (PAHO) financing mechanism plan for the purchase of vaccines against covid19. It has made a US$1.477 million downpayment to fund research and development of Covax vaccines.

In November, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said the Moderna vaccine would be better for TT, as the storage conditions for the vaccines were closer to what was already available.

An article in the UK Guardian said the Gavi documents, which were leaked to Reuters, say the Covax programme was “struggling for a lack of funds, supply risks, and complex contractual arrangements, which could make it impossible to achieve its goals. The risk of a failure to establish a successful Covax facility is very high, and the failure of the facility could leave some people without access to vaccines until 2024.”

It said Covax’s plans rely on cheaper vaccines that have yet to receive approval, rather than vaccines from frontrunners Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna that use more expensive new mRNA technology.

The article quoted a Gavi spokesman as saying the body remains confident it can achieve its goals.

“It would be irresponsible not to assess the risks inherent to such a massive and complex undertaking, and to build policies and instruments to mitigate those risks.”

Insiders at the World Health Organization, which is one of the three pillars of the Covax scheme, said negotiations with pharmaceutical companies so far not signed up to the scheme, as well as with individual countries to supply excess doses, are still ongoing, with new announcements on the scheme expected shortly.

Attempts to contact Deyalsingh and the local office of PAHO were unsuccessful up to press time.