Covid-19: why vaccine delivery is delayed
Audio 03:57
Vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 vaccine at Émile Muller hospital in Mulhouse, in eastern France, January 8, 2021. SEBASTIEN BOZON AFP
By: Dominique Baillard Follow
8 min
Around the world, the lack of an anti-covid vaccine is slowing the campaign.
These delays cause anguish and controversy among the population and they could thwart the recovery.
Whose fault is it ?
Publicity
To achieve collective immunity for the entire planet, it is necessary to vaccinate 70% of the world population, or 6 billion people, this requires at least 6 billion doses, or even double since it takes two for most vaccines on the market today.
An impossible mission by 2021 from an industrial point of view: this year 2 billion doses will be manufactured, explains Anne Bucher, the former Director of Health of the European Commission, -in a note published by Terra Nova.
There is something to satisfy as a priority the needs of the first to have bought, that is to say the rich countries.
They carried out half of the orders (51%) while they represent only 14% of the population.
One in four people on earth will have to wait until next year to be vaccinated.
We are far from the universal vaccine recommended by the WHO
The development of the vaccine or rather of the anti-covid vaccines - there are more than a dozen of them and several hundred other projects are being tested - has been a global success, based on the real accelerated cooperation between the public and the private, and between the countries which took part in the tests, but in this technological prowess and this race often marked by nationalism, the law of the strongest prevailed on the vision of the common good.
The United States, capable of putting $ 10 billion on the table to take the risk and support laboratories in the spring is the best served.
Europe, which has spent only 3 billion, is already suffering the consequences.
Its manufacturers, who also have industrial challenges to resolve, are delaying their deliveries.
After the American Pfizer, it is now the Briton Astra Zeneca who announces additional delays.
This frantic race for the vaccine in rich countries also has negative effects on the price of doses in southern countries
South Africa must pay twice as much as Europeans for the Astra Zeneca it ordered direct to speed up the pace of vaccination as it faces today an even more virulent variant of the coronavirus than the previous one .
The British vaccine is however one of the only ones put on sale at cost price, at 2 euros 50 for the 27 according to an indiscretion of the Belgian Minister of Health.
The price doubles for South Africa because it has not contributed like the Europeans to development spending by placing a pre-order, explained the minister concerned.
Many middle-income countries like South Africa are ordering solo.
The WHO spoke of moral catastrophe, it is also an economic catastrophe which looms
And it is again the WHO which gives the alert, in a study to be published today, economists calculate the cost of the delay in the global vaccination campaign.
Middle-income countries that will not be immunized at the same time as others will be forced to extend lockdowns and will therefore participate less in world trade.
With very negative repercussions in advanced countries according to this study: 3.5% less growth compared to the level before the pandemic because of disruptions in trade.
There are still ways to avoid this health and economic disaster, among other things by giving more resources to the Covax alliance responsible for supplying the poorest countries;
it still needs $ 27 billion to complete its funding round.
Enough to buy 10% of the vaccines needed worldwide.
►In short
China became the top host country for foreign investment in 2020
According to United Nations figures, for the first time the United States is losing its first place because of the decline in new foreign investments while they continued to increase in China, by 4%.
Globally, foreign investments fell by 40%, it is even stronger in Africa, -63%.
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Coronavirus
Health and medicine
France