Tag: Vaccine

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Moderna Apples for Authorization of Its Covid Vaccine for Adolescents

Moderna Apples for Authorization of Its Covid Vaccine for Adolescents

Moderna applied to the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday for emergency clearance to use its coronavirus vaccine in 12-17 year olds. If approved as expected, the vaccine would offer a second option to protect teenagers from the coronavirus and speed the return to normal for middle and high school students.

The company has already applied for approval from Health Canada and the European Medicines Agency and plans to apply for approval in other countries, CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement. FDA approval usually takes three to four weeks.

Last month, the FDA expanded the emergency approval of Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine for use in children ages 12-15. This vaccine was already available to anyone over the age of 16. About 7 million children under the age of 18 have received at least one dose of the vaccine to date, and about 3.5 million are fully protected.

Moderna’s vaccine was approved for use in adults in December. His application to the FDA for young teenagers is based on study results published last month. This clinical trial enrolled 3,732 children, ages 12-17, with 2,500 receiving two doses of the vaccine and the remainder receiving a saltwater placebo.

The study found no cases of symptomatic Covid-19 in fully vaccinated adolescents, which is 100 percent effectiveness, the same number that Pfizer and BioNTech reported for this age group. The study also found that a single dose of the Moderna vaccine was 93 percent effective. Participants did not experience any serious side effects beyond those seen in adults: injection site pain, headache, fatigue, muscle pain, and chills.

An independent safety monitoring committee will follow all participants for 12 months after their second injection to assess long-term protection and safety.

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Knowledgeable on U.S.-China competitors in vaccine diplomacy

Expert on U.S.-China competition in vaccine diplomacy

Workers unload boxes of the Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine donated by China at Damascus International Airport in the Syrian capital on April 24, 2021.

Loua Beshara | AFP | Getty Images

The competition between the US and China could heat up on another front: Covid-19 vaccine diplomacy.

China has been a major supplier of Covid vaccines to much of the developing world, an effort some experts said could strengthen Beijing’s global influence and deepen its ties with other nations.

But a health policy and policy expert told CNBC on Thursday that the US is now catching up as the White House lays out plans to donate millions of doses of Covid vaccine overseas and President Joe Biden appears to want to do more.

“We will see China face a more formidable competitor,” Yanzhong Huang, Senior Fellow on Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, told CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia.

In recent months, China has been “almost the only major player” sending Covid vaccines to other countries, said Huang, who is also a professor at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations.

This is especially true if India has stopped exporting vaccines to prioritize its domestic needs and Russia’s supply abroad remains very limited, he said.

Several reports have indicated that the US is stepping up its efforts to exchange Covid vaccines around the world.

Biden will reportedly announce in a speech at the G-7 summit on Thursday that the US will buy 500 million more doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine to share with COVAX, a global vaccine exchange initiative .

CNBC also reported Wednesday that the government is negotiating with Moderna to secure additional doses of vaccine to supply the world.

Origins of Covid-19

Relations between the US and China got off to a bumpy start under the Biden administration. The two sides have clashed on several issues, including the origins of the coronavirus, which was first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Biden said last month he ordered a closer look at the origins of the pandemic, including whether the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory. In response, China accused the US of a political “guilt game”.

Huang said the issue of the origins of Covid-19 is so politicized that it is likely to fuel further tension between the US and China if additional evidence emerges to the possibility that Covid-19 stems from a laboratory incident.

Without China’s cooperation, such evidence of “smoking weapons” may not be found, Huang said. In the West, however, the theory that the virus came from a laboratory has become an increasingly “credible, if not mainstream,” explanation for the origin of the pandemic, he said.

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Biden to Ship Thousands and thousands of Pfizer Vaccine Doses to 100 Nations

Biden to Send Millions of Pfizer Vaccine Doses to 100 Countries

WASHINGTON – President Biden, under pressure to aggressively address the global coronavirus vaccine shortage, will announce Thursday that his government will buy 500 million doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine and deliver them to about 100 countries next year The donation will be made by people familiar with the plan.

The White House reached the deal just in time for Mr Biden’s eight-day tour of Europe, which will be his first opportunity to assert the United States as world leader and to re-establish ties that have been badly frayed by President Donald J. Trump.

“We have to end Covid-19, not just at home we do, but everywhere,” Biden told American troops after landing at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, England. “There is no wall high enough to protect us from this pandemic or the next biological threat we face, and there will be others. It requires coordinated multilateral action. “

People familiar with the Pfizer deal said the United States would pay for the cans at a “not for profit” price. The first 200 million cans will be distributed by the end of this year, followed by 300 million by next June, they said. The doses will be distributed through Covax, the international vaccine exchange initiative.

Mr Biden is in Europe for a week to attend the NATO and Group of 7 summits and to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin in Geneva. He will likely use the trip to urge other nations to step up vaccine distribution.

In a statement Wednesday, Jeffrey D. Zients, White House official in charge of developing a global vaccination strategy, said Biden will “bring the world’s democracies together to resolve this global crisis, with America leading the way, the vaccine arsenal that will be of vital importance in our global fight against Covid-19. “

The White House is trying to highlight its success in fighting the pandemic – especially its vaccination campaign – and using that success as a diplomatic tool, especially as China and Russia are trying to do the same. Mr Biden has insisted that unlike China and Russia, who share their vaccines with dozens of countries, the United States will not attempt to extort promises from countries that receive US-made vaccines.

The 500 million doses are still well below the 11 billion the World Health Organization estimates to vaccinate the world, but well above what the United States has promised so far. Other nations have asked the United States to give up some of its ample vaccine supplies. In some African countries, less than 1 percent of people are fully vaccinated compared to 42 percent in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Global health advocates welcomed the news but reiterated their stance that it is not enough for the United States to simply give away vaccines. They say the Biden government needs to create the conditions for other countries to manufacture vaccines themselves, including transferring technology to make the cans.

“The world desperately needs new productions to produce billions more doses within a year, not just pledges to buy planned inadequate supplies,” Peter Maybarduk, director of the Citizens’ Access to Medicines Program, said in a Explanation. He added, “We have not yet seen a US government or G7 plan with the ambition or urgency to add billions more doses and end the pandemic.”

The Pfizer deal has the potential to open the door to similar agreements with other vaccine makers, including Moderna, whose vaccine, unlike Pfizer’s, was developed with US taxpayers’ money. In addition, the Biden government has negotiated a deal whereby Merck will help manufacture Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, and those doses may be available for use overseas.

The United States has already signed a contract to purchase 300 million doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, which requires two vaccinations to be distributed in the United States; the 500 million cans are on top of that, according to people familiar with the deal.

Biden in Europe

Updated

June 9, 2021, 8:50 p.m. ET

Neither Pfizer nor administrators would tell what the company is charging the government for the cans. Pfizer is also offering the Biden government the option to purchase an additional 200 million cans at cost to be donated overseas.

For Pfizer, the decision to sell so much of the supply to the Biden government for no profit is a significant step.

The vaccine accounted for $ 3.5 billion in sales for the first three months of this year, nearly a quarter of Pfizer’s total sales. By some estimates, the company made approximately $ 900 million in pre-tax income from the vaccine in the first quarter.

However, the company has also been criticized for disproportionately supporting wealthy nations, despite Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla promising in January to ensure that “developing countries have equal access to the rest of the world.”

The 200 million Pfizer cans the Biden government plans to donate accounts for about 7 percent of the three billion cans the company is expected to produce this year. Pfizer expects to deliver an additional 800 million doses to lower and lower middle income countries through other agreements with individual countries or Covax, a spokeswoman said.

For Mr Biden, the deal shows that his government is ready to intervene deeper in the treasury to help poorer countries.

Last week, Mr Biden said the United States would be distributing 25 million doses to countries in the Caribbean and Latin America this month; South and Southeast Asia; Africa; and the Palestinian Territories, Gaza and the West Bank.

These cans are the first of 80 million that Mr Biden intended to send abroad by the end of June; three quarters of these are sold by Covax. The rest will be used to address urgent and urgent crises in countries like India, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, government officials said. Many of the 80 million cans were manufactured by AstraZeneca and are still subject to a complex review by the Food and Drug Administration.

Mr Biden has also pledged to support a waiver of an international intellectual property treaty that would make it difficult for companies to refuse their technology. But European leaders are blocking the proposed exemption, and pharmaceutical companies are firmly against it. The World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Council meets this week to review the derogation.

The president’s promise of vaccines for the world market comes as he prepares on Thursday for a meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has urged leaders to pledge to feed everyone in the world by the end of 2022 vaccinate. Mr Biden’s announcement is likely welcome news to Mr Johnson, whose critics have questioned where the money will come from to keep his promise.

“The truth is, world leaders have been stepping down the street for months – to the point where they ran out of streets,” Edwin Ikhouria, executive director for Africa at ONE Campaign, a nonprofit that dedicated to eradicating global poverty, said in a statement on Wednesday.

About 64 percent of adults in the United States are at least partially vaccinated, and the president’s goal is to increase that number to 70 percent by July 4th, following an accessibility strategy and incentives to reach Americans who have not yet received any injections.

Despite these efforts, there are unused doses of vaccine that could be wasted. Once thawed, cans have a limited shelf life and millions could expire within two weeks, according to federal officials.

Equal access to vaccines has become one of the most persistent challenges in containing the pandemic. Wealthier nations and private corporations have pledged tens of millions of doses and billions of dollars to sustain global supplies, but the disparities in vaccine allocations so far have been stark.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, warned this week that the world is facing a “two-pronged pandemic” with countries short of vaccines struggling with virus cases even as better-served countries return to normal.

These lower-income countries will largely depend on wealthier ones until vaccines can be distributed and produced on a more equitable basis, he said.

Daniel E. Slotnik contributed the coverage from New York and Michael D. Shear from Plymouth, England.

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Infections Rise in Mongolia, The place Sinopharm Is the Essential Vaccine

Infections Rise in Mongolia, Where Sinopharm Is the Main Vaccine

Coronavirus cases are surging in Mongolia, where more than half the population is fully vaccinated, prompting a new focus on the effectiveness of its main vaccine, developed by China’s Sinopharm.

Mongolia reported 1,312 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday as the country’s total infections neared 70,000, almost all recorded since January. New daily infections have risen more than 70 percent in the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database.

The landlocked nation has emerged as an outlier in the global scramble for vaccines among developing nations, securing enough doses for its eligible population thanks to its strategic location between Russia and China — two vaccine manufacturing giants with global ambitions. Mongolia has signed deals for 4.3 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine and one million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, although only 60,000 Sputnik doses have arrived so far.

Chinese vaccines, such as the ones made by Sinopharm and another company, Sinovac, use inactivated coronaviruses to trigger an immune response in the body. They have been shown in studies to be less effective than the vaccines developed by the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna, which use newer mRNA technology.

Sinopharm’s vaccine initially came under scrutiny because of a lack of transparency in its late-stage trial data. The vaccine faced more questions after the island nation of the Seychelles, which relied heavily on Sinopharm to inoculate its population, also saw a spike in cases, although most people did not become seriously ill.

“Inactivated vaccines like Sinovac and Sinopharm are not as effective against infection but very effective against severe disease,” said Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist and biostatistician at the University of Hong Kong School of Public Health.

“Although Mongolia seems to be having a spike in infections and cases, my expectation is that there won’t be large number of hospitalizations,” he added.

And some virus variants may spread fast enough to cause concern even in countries where much of the population has vaccinations effective against them: Britain is dealing with a rise in cases linked to the Delta variant, despite having more than half of its adult population fully vaccinated, largely with shots from AstraZeneca and Pfizer.

Still, the wave of infections has raised questions in Mongolia over why the government relied on the Sinopharm shots instead of a vaccine proven to be more effective. It came as Mongolians headed to the polls on Wednesday to vote for president, the first election since the constitution was amended to limit the president to one six-year term. The prime minister is the head of government and holds executive power.

A year ago, Mongolia was among the few countries in the world that boasted no local coronavirus cases, but an outbreak in November changed that. A political crisis ensued and protests over perceived mishandling of the outbreak led the prime minister to resign in January.

The new prime minister, Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai, has promised to revive a flagging economy and end social distancing restrictions that have hurt businesses. A fresh wave of cases could threaten this pledge.

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Vaccine journey offers? Russia plans packages to revive tourism business

Vaccine travel deals? Russia plans packages to revive tourism industry

Tourists walk along Red Square in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow on November 6, 2020.

ALEXANDER NEMENOV | AFP | Getty Images

With Russia’s coronavirus shot Sputnik V sluggishly received among its own citizens, Russia is considering launching travel packages for Covid vaccinations for tourists.

Russian state news agency Tass quoted one of the country’s tourism industry leaders as saying that “vaccination prices” were ready, but that visas and entry requirements for foreign visitors were holding them back.

“The product is ready, but the issues of visa support and legal entry for foreigners who want to get the Russian vaccine have yet to be resolved,” Andrei Ignatyev, president of the Russian Union of Travel Industry (RUTI), told Tass.

The price of a three-week vaccination rate for foreigners will be anywhere from $ 1,500 to $ 2,500, excluding the airline’s expense, Ignatyev added.

Vaccine prices seem to have the blessing of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Speaking at the International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in St. Petersburg last week, Putin asked the government to examine the possibility of offering paid Covid vaccinations to foreign visitors to Russia.

Russia is keen to revitalize its tourism industry to end the Covid pandemic. Like other countries around the world, last March Russia introduced entry restrictions for almost all foreigners (with the exception of some workers), bringing tourism to a standstill. Since then, entry restrictions have been relaxed if visitors present negative Covid tests before traveling.

Immunization tourism could prove popular for people in countries struggling to get their own immunization programs off the ground. The Times of India reported last month that a Delhi-based travel agent was offering a 24-day package tour to Russia that included two shots of the Sputnik-V vaccine and a 21-day interval to allow sightseeing between vaccinations.

Slow domestic recording

Russia was the first country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine – its own Sputnik V – last August, but despite its rapid approval and rollout, domestic uptake of vaccination has been sluggish.

According to data compiled by Our World In Data, only 9% of the adult population are fully vaccinated so far, placing Russia behind Brazil, India, Turkey and Mexico in terms of vaccination progress.

Target market

In Europe, according to Our World In Data, over 23% of adults are now fully vaccinated. Russia will therefore look for potential vaccination tourists in the distance, said Ignatiev.

“The countries of Africa and Latin America have shown great interest in such a tourist product throughout the vaccination campaign in Russia, and RUTI has received such inquiries,” he added, according to Tass.

In late May, President Putin announced Russia would not make Covid vaccines compulsory for its citizens and said people should recognize the need to vaccinate for themselves. He also stressed that the vaccine was safe; According to peer-reviewed results from its late-stage clinical study published in February in the medical journal The Lancet, Sputnik V was found to be 91.6% effective in preventing the development of Covid-19.

“I would like to emphasize again and appeal to all of our citizens: think carefully, remember that the Russian vaccine – practice has already shown that millions (of people) have used it – is currently the most reliable and safest. ” “Said Putin. “In our country, all the conditions for a vaccination are in place.”

A poll published in March by the Russian electoral center Levada found that 62% of people did not want to receive the vaccine, with the greatest reluctance noted among 18-24 year olds.

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India to Take Over Vaccine Program From States Amid Criticism

India to Take Over Vaccine Program From States Amid Criticism

Amid criticism of the government’s handling of the coronavirus during one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India said in a nationwide address on Monday that the federal government would play a bigger role procuring vaccines on behalf of states. It’s a process that had been mired in confusion because of squabbling between the central and state governments and a lack of vaccine supply.

Mr. Modi said that his government would increase both the pace of inoculations and the purchasing of vaccines. Less than 4 percent of the country’s 1.4 billion people have been fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times database.

“The government of India will procure 75 percent stock from vaccine manufacturers and provide it to states,” he said. “That means, no state governments will have to spend anything on vaccines.”

Many Indian states had earlier vowed to vaccinate their populations for free, particularly those ruled by parties in opposition to Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, but they were forced to close vaccination centers after they ran out of supplies, a problem plaguing the entire country as infections continue to spread. Mr. Modi also announced free inoculations for all Indians above the age of 18, a policy that was earlier reserved for frontline workers and people above the age of 45.

The prime minister and his government have come under heavy criticism over their handling of the pandemic. Mr. Modi and members of his party appeared at political rallies and allowed mass gatherings to take place before the country experienced a devastating second wave of the pandemic.

Mr. Modi has kept a relatively low profile since his political rallies in April, in contrast with his frequent live addresses during the first wave of the pandemic last year, when he announced a nationwide lockdown four hours before it took effect.

Last week, the country’s top court asked the government to explain how it planned to achieve its own target of inoculating about 900 million adults by the end of the year. It also called out the government for allowing private health facilities to charge people under 45 for vaccinations, calling the policy “arbitrary and irrational.”

Mr. Modi said in his address that private hospitals will still be allowed to procure 25 percent stock of the vaccines. State governments were required to ensure that only 150 rupees or a little more than $2 could be levied as a “service charge” over and above the usual price, he said.

On Monday, India’s health ministry reported more than 100,000 new cases and 2,427 deaths. Though the number is high, it was lower than it was in May when the country was reporting more than 400,000 cases a day. India’s official numbers are believed to be a vast undercount, especially at a time when the virus is spreading to rural areas where testing is limited.

“We are seeing how every single dose of vaccines is so important,” Mr. Modi said. “A life is attached to each dose.”

Extending the government’s assistance program for poor households beyond the months of May and June, Mr. Modi announced free distribution of food to over 800 million households every month until November. “The aim of this effort is to make sure no countrymen or their families are forced to go to bed hungry,” he said.

Mr. Modi also took aim at his opposition, who he blamed for “political mudslinging.”

“It is the responsibility of every government, every public representative, to ensure that vaccinations are done with full discipline, that we are able to reach every citizen, as per the availability of vaccines,” he said.

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Biden Covid group holds briefing as U.S. doubles down on vaccine efforts

Fauci says AstraZeneca will likely issue modified statement

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President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 Response Team holds a press conference Thursday on the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic that infected more than 33.3 million Americans and killed at least 595,849 people.

On Wednesday, Biden said the government had redoubled efforts to get more Americans vaccinated against Covid-19 by July 4th

In early May, Biden announced his administration’s new goals in the fight against this virus: 70% of adults in the US should receive at least one dose of a vaccine and 160 million adults should be fully vaccinated by Independence Day.

In a White House speech on Wednesday, Biden announced June as “national month of action” to vaccinate more Americans. He urged unvaccinated Americans to get the shots and said they were still at risk of getting seriously ill, dying, and passing the disease on to others, especially as autumn approaches.

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Vaccine hesitancy in Asia which lags U.S., Europe as instances surge

Government confident of reaching vaccine target

A doctor walks past the banner announcing a Covid-19 vaccination campaign in Hyderabad, India on May 28, 2021.

Noah Seelam | AFP | Getty Images

SINGAPORE – Asia Pacific is struggling to vaccinate its population as Covid-19 infections are increasing rapidly in many places in the region, some at record levels.

Many Asian governments have problems securing vaccines, said Benjamin Cowling, a professor at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health. Also, early successes in containing the coronavirus in Asia may have led people to view vaccination with less urgency, he added.

“If we have had very few infections in the past year, the idea is that Covid is not such a risk and we could go to zero (cases) if we just did the face mask and social distancing – no rush to vaccinate. Hesitation was one big problem, ”Cowling, who heads the school’s epidemiology and biostatistics department, told CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia on Tuesday.

In short, Asia has gone from being a flagship of containment successes to being a laggard when it comes to adopting vaccinations.

The region is now experiencing a renewed increase in infections.

India, Nepal, Malaysia, Japan and Taiwan are among those who broke records in the number of daily cases in the past month – prompting authorities to impose new restrictions in an attempt to contain the cases.

Asia’s Covid vaccination

Countries in the Asia-Pacific region have combined about 23.8 doses of Covid vaccine per 100 people, according to CNBC analysis of data compiled by the June 1 stats website Our World in Data.

That’s well below the roughly 61.4 doses per 100 people in North America and the 48.5 doses per 100 people in Europe, the data showed. Africa is the region with the slowest vaccination campaign, and data suggests that only 2.5 doses were given for every 100 people.

Economists at French bank Natixis have been tracking vaccine shipments and vaccination progress in the Asia-Pacific region. They said in a press release last month that while supply shortages have been a major contributor to slow vaccination in the region, few economies are currently facing this problem.

The economists named Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam as “those who have not yet received the necessary doses for mass vaccination”.

“Public demand remains weak, however,” said the Natixis report. “Skepticism about the newly developed vaccines seems to be a common reason for reluctance around the world. But it is even more so in Asia, where more effective containment has resulted in less urgency.”

Leader and straggler

In the Asia-Pacific region, Mongolia and Singapore lead the way with around 97 and 69 total vaccinations per 100 inhabitants, respectively, according to Our World in Data.

The data showed that many border and emerging countries such as Vietnam and Afghanistan are lagging behind.

According to a report by research firm Fitch Solutions, several frontier and emerging markets in Asia are relying on COVAX – a global vaccine exchange initiative – for Covid vaccines.

But supplies to COVAX are now at risk because India has restricted exports of vaccines, the report said. Located in India is the vaccine maker Serum Institute India, which is a key supplier of Covid doses for the initiative.

If Indian exports do not resume soon, many low- and low- and middle-income countries that rely on COVAX will experience “further delays” in their vaccination progress, warned Fitch solutions.

Recovery in Asia vs. West

Based on current vaccination rates, Natixis economists predict that this year only Singapore and mainland China will be able to vaccinate 70% of their respective countries’ populations – a similar schedule to the US and UK

This is the threshold that some medical experts say is necessary to achieve “herd immunity” when the virus stops being transmitted quickly because most people are immune from vaccination or after infection.

Asian economies still struggling for vaccine deliveries may not hit that threshold until 2025 or beyond, the economists said.

Slow advances in vaccination will hit some Asian economies harder than others, Natixis economists said. They said the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia had the biggest Urgency of vaccination due to lackluster handling of the pandemic or a huge economic burden from tourism.

“In short, Asia has gone from being a flagship of containment successes to being a laggard in vaccination adoption,” said Natixis, adding that social distancing and cross-border restrictions will remain in place in the region longer compared to the west.

“The broader economic reopening in the West, based on a much faster roll-out of vaccines, particularly for the US and increasingly also for the EU, could exacerbate divergence and make Asia more vulnerable and less favorable to investment on its path to recovery. “

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U.S. Covid Vaccine Donations Will Go to ‘Large Vary’ of Nations

First U.S. Vaccine Donations Will Go to ‘Wide Range’ of Nations in Need

And the president has pledged to donate up to 60 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine. However, these cans, which are also manufactured in the Emergent facility, are not approved for domestic use and may not be released in other countries until the regulatory authorities deem them safe. If they weren’t cleared for release, Mr. Biden would have to agree to donate more of the three vaccines used here in order to fulfill his 80 million pledge.

The president has described vaccine donations as part of an “entirely new effort” to increase vaccine supply and significantly expand manufacturing capacity, most of it in the United States. To further expand the offering, Mr. Biden recently announced that he would support the waiver of intellectual property protection for coronavirus vaccines. He also made Mr. Zients responsible for developing a global vaccine strategy.

But activists say it’s not enough to simply donate overdoses and support renunciation. They argue that Mr Biden needs to create the conditions for pharmaceutical companies to transfer their intellectual property to vaccine manufacturers abroad so that other countries can set up their own vaccine manufacturing operations.

Peter Maybarduk, director of the Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program, on Thursday called on the government to invest $ 25 billion in “urgent public vaccine manufacturing in locations around the world” to generate eight billion doses of vaccine within a year using mRNA To create and “share” technology. these vaccine prescriptions with the world. “

When asked recently whether the United States would be ready, Andrew Slavitt, a senior health advisor to the President, sidestepped the question, saying only that the United States would “play a leadership role” but still “global partners across the board.” World ”. ”

On Thursday, Mr Zients said the United States would repeal the Defense Production Act “priority assessment” for three vaccine manufacturers – AstraZeneca, Novavax and Sanofi – that do not make coronavirus vaccines for use in the United States. The shift means companies in the United States supplying vaccine manufacturers “can make their own decisions about which orders to fill first,” Zients said.

This could free up supplies for foreign vaccine manufacturers and allow other countries to ramp up their own programs.

Abdi Latif Dahir contributed to the coverage.

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Authorities assured of reaching vaccine goal

Government confident of reaching vaccine target

The Indian government is confident that the country will be able to meet an ambitious target of having more than 2 billion coronavirus vaccine doses by the end of the year, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said.

Last month, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said in a statement that India will have 516 million vaccine doses by July, including shots already administered, and that the number will rise to 2.16 billion doses between August and December.

“We have paid the two existing domestic manufacturers, Serum Institute (of India) and Bharat Biotech, advance money to produce vaccines for the whole of May, June, and July. We are only past May,” Puri told CNBC’s Tanvir Gill in an interview. He explained that the government is also in advanced stages of talks with other vaccine manufacturers.

The government is “absolutely confident of being able to meet this target by December,” Puri added.

In its forecast, the Indian government expects about 750 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that is being locally produced by the Serum Institute of India and is known as Covishield. Another 550 million doses of Covaxin, which is developed and produced by Indian company Bharat Biotech, are also expected.

People walking past a wall mural depicting medical staff hitting the coronavirus with vaccine needle at Santacruz on March 29, 2021 in Mumbai, India.

Pratik Chorge | Hindustan Times | Getty Images

Both vaccines are being currently used in India’s inoculation campaign where more than 222 million doses have been administered as of Thursday — but a majority of them are first of the two doses required for immunity.

Russia’s Sputnik vaccine — the third shot to get approved — will contribute about 156 million to the predicted tally. Reuters reported that six Indian companies have already signed deals to produce around 1 billion doses of the vaccine annually and that Serum Institute is also seeking approval to make it.

The government also expects:

In addition, India has also authorized foreign-made vaccines that have been granted emergency approval by the U.S., U.K., European Union, Japan and World Health Organization-listed agencies.

Vaccines, the way forward

Experts agree that vaccination is the way forward for India — both to bring the economy out of the Covid crisis and to mitigate the effects of a third wave. But vaccine hesitancy, in part due to misinformation being spread about the shots, has been an issue both in India and globally.

Vaccines are also in short supply and that has slowed down domestic inoculation efforts and forced India to halt exports to other countries.

For his part, Puri said that proper dissemination of information and education around vaccination is needed and that the government is doing its part.

India is battling a devastating second wave of outbreak that started in February and accelerated in April and early May, which overwhelmed the country’s health-care infrastructure. The sector has struggled with shortages of beds, oxygen and medication as many doctors and other health-care workers succumbed to Covid-19.

A doctor walks past the banner announcing a Covid-19 vaccination drive in Hyderabad, India on May 28, 2021.

Noah Seelam | AFP | Getty Images

Some of that pressure eased once the central government and states stepped up their efforts to manage the outbreak while international aid poured in, providing some of the much-needed medical supplies.

Daily reported cases in India have declined from a peak of more than 414,000 in early May. So far, the South Asian nation reported more than 28.5 million cases and over 340,000 deaths.

Puri said the government has now mapped out ways to deal with challenges like oxygen shortages, where hard-hit areas ran out of stock and logistical difficulties made it harder for new supplies to reach them.

Initially, the government diverted oxygen meant for industrial use to medical facilities. Last month, it stepped up efforts to streamline the supply by allocating funds to install 500 medical oxygen plants across India within three months.

“If a third wave comes, and when it comes, depending on the requirements, our capacity to again repurpose and again to convert back to dealing with it, I think that infrastructure capacity is there,” Puri said.