The coronavirus pandemic has crippled life across the globe and brought upon one of the biggest health calamities in decades. It has overwhelmed even the best of healthcare systems and left them reeling.?
As countries are scrapping to find the cure for the disease, there are serious concerns that the vaccine might not be universally available whenever there is one.
Medical experts have warned that the volume of vaccine available to fight the coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2 in coming years is expected to fall far short of global demand, despite an unprecedented effort to manufacture billions of doses.
According to ANI citing a report in The Washington Post, about 70 per cent of the world¡¯s population -- or 5.6 billion people -- will probably need to be immunized to begin to establish herd immunity and slow its spread.?
Such a scenario, health experts fear, will lead to a worldwide fight in which manufacturers will sell only to the highest bidders, rich countries trying to buy up the supplies, and nations where manufacturers have located hoard vaccines for their own citizens.??
¡°The model of countries thinking only of themselves is not going to work. Even if you¡¯re living somewhere that¡¯s somehow perfectly without any infections, your best efforts to fight the virus are going to fail unless you shut off all your borders and trade,¡± Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, a public-private partnership that helps provide vaccines to developing countries, told The Washington Post.?
Berkley also said that coronavirus is a global problem and would need a global solution.?
International health advocates want to avoid a repeat of 2009, when wealthy countries ¡ª including the United States were at the?head of the line?for H1N1 swine-flu vaccine, leaving underdeveloped countries with little supply until after the pandemic subsided.??
The global grab for protective equipment and ventilators that left poorer countries empty-handed suggests the competition over vaccines could be at least as fierce. Dozens of companies large and small are rushing to develop vaccines using different technologies and approaches.
The race for a vaccine is full of risks because no one knows which projects will succeed. That forces companies to scale up to produce millions of doses of vaccine that might end up being worthless.