This week, we took a look at the effect that Joe Biden’s election as the next president of the United States could have on global access to vaccines and the foreign reaction to the pandemic.
BIDEN MAKES A DEFI IMMEDIATELY ON WORLD VACUNATION – There is no doubt that Joe Biden’s election was eased through global fitness officials in Geneva and elsewhere, given his promise to enroll in the World Health Organization on the first day of his presidency and foreign efforts to combat the pandemic, but the announcement through Pfizer/BioNTech of the promising effects of his candidate vaccine makes global access problems urgent.
The urgent question: How does Biden balance the political imperative to temporarily vaccinate Americans while ensuring a fair global distribution of vaccines?
The first coronavirus vaccine may be approved in a few weeks, while Donald Trump is still in the White House. Trump has rejected COVAX, the global plan to distribute vaccines equally around the world, partly because of its ties to WHO. In componenticular say if you will enroll in COVAX or detail other plans to enroll in the global distribution.
If the Pfizer vaccine is approved, there is still no detailed plan to reach the poorest countries, and the source will first be limited and photographs should be stored at very low temperatures, creating logistical problems. disorders in many places, from the United States to India.
Pfizer and BioNTech have not reached an agreement with COVAX, a Pfizer spokesperson said they were in active discussions and that drug brands planned to offer prospective non-profit vaccine for low-income countries.
Camp Biden says much more still. When asked for details, an official running on Biden’s transition told the campaign website, which outlines a plan to create a global fitness emergencies council that includes other governments, foreign monetary institutions, businesses and organizations. . NGO running to “offset the charge of offering vaccines. to the next countries. “
But global fitness advocates expect Biden to temporarily expand a plan, given his calls for foreign cooperation and the global fitness experts who have begged him (read on to be more informed).
“I hope you’ll be fast enough in action,” said Kate Dodson, vice president of global fitness strategy at the United Nations Foundation. Despite Pfizer’s announcement, the team would earn “days or even weeks” with advance planning to begin when Biden takes office, he said.
What Biden can do: In addition to joining COVAX, you’ll have a component of vaccines that will get the green protection of the U. S. Food and Drug Administration. But it’s not the first time And when.
The U. S. government has not been able to do that. But it’s not the first time You have purchased one hundred million doses of the two-dose Pfizer vaccine for nearly $2 billion with the option to earn up to 500 million more. The initial order is expected to end until March, Pfizer said. , Canada, the European Union and Chile also purchased at least 360 million doses in advance. The two drug brands have signed or are close to concluding final agreements with 38 countries, a Pfizer spokesman said, without naming them.
In addition to Pfizer injections, the United States has also received at least 800 million doses of other candidate vaccines. The Trump administration was executing a plan to share them with other countries if there were any left after Americans were vaccinated, but it did. not revealing details It is imaginable that Biden can devise a new plan, anyway.
A fair fact plan for vaccine distribution around the world would allow previously known teams through WHO, such as frontline fitness employees, to get the first vaccines, said Kate Elder, Senior Vaccine Policy Advisor for the Doctors Without Borders access campaign. . ” We would probably not succeed if a 20-year-old from New Jersey in good physical condition was vaccinated against a frontline fitness employee in South Sudan,” he said.
WELCOME TO GLOBAL PULSE. It’s been an extraordinary week, from the U. S. election to the Pfizer vaccine and the FDA’s first approval of a monoclonal antibody for Covid-19.
In addition to Biden’s victory speech, another kind of speech emerged in my brain this week: Dave Chappelle’s comic monologue “Saturday Night Live” encouraging typification. “I would go to everyone who celebrates today that: it’s smart to be a humble winner,” he said, nodding to his appearance on screen after Trump’s victory in 2016. “How bad does it hurt me? Please note that for the time being, part of the country still agrees.
THE CONGAL DEPTH FOR PFIZER’S GLOBAL OBSTACLES PRESENT – Global fitness experts weren’t particularly pleased with the promising vaccine news from Pfizer / BioNTech this week, as among all vaccine applicants in Phase III clinical trials, is the one that wants the lowest temperature for storage. : -94 degrees Fahrenheit. Although difficult, this has already been done in low- and middle-income countries: Ervebo, Merck’s Ebola vaccine, will have to be stored at -76 Fahrenheit.
To administer it, the Ebola vaccine will have to go from ultra-high temperatures to general bloodless chain temperatures between 35. 6 and 46. 4 degrees Fahrenheit, said Barbara Saitta, medical vaccine advisor at Doctors Without Borders. temperatures for two weeks; The Pfizer coronavirus vaccine can only last five days. The bloodless overall chain and the ultra bloodless garage will be a burden on those countries, he said.
Areas without a reliable force network tend to rely on fuel coolers, and that means making sure there’s enough fuel to run the refrigerator, he said.
People who placed the Ebola vaccine in the box used a garage device that did not require a source of force. But this device is not common; The number of vaccines to be given will be almost as large as the number of doses of vaccines provided, Saitta said. Other main points, the length of the vials and the amount of dosages that can be used in those garage appliances and refrigerators, are also critical operational issues, he said.
The scale is unprecedented: Saitta noted that Ebola outbreaks have been located. Billions worldwide need Covid-19 coverage.
A door-to-door crusade can facilitate logistics, said Tom Kenyon, former director of the CDC Global Health Center, where he oversaw global immunization, but the network will have to be informed and able to do so, and there won’t have to be enough fitness staff to administer it. Both may pose more potential barriers, said Kenyon, who is the fitness manager at Hope Project.
Pfizer and BioNTech rely on: “Low- and middle-income countries would get products from our global plants and we have the distribution approach to succeed in all markets,” said a Pfizer spokesman. The vaccine will be produced in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Puurs in Belgium and Mainz in Germany.
He claimed that corporations had “specially designed, temperature-controlled thermal conveyors that used dry ice to maintain recommended garage conditions” for 10 days. They then transported the vaccine to primary schools in a country or region and transported it to the floor for dosing. “We will use GPS thermal sensors on each of the thermal conveyors with a tower that will track the location and temperature of each vaccine shipment on its predefined routes,” he said. This would allow the company to “proactively save unwanted deviations and act before they occur. “
Once the vaccine reaches the point of use, there are 3 options, according to the spokesperson: buy it in freezers at very low temperatures, which she says “are now commercially available” and can extend the shelf life up to six months; Store for five days at the temperature of the bloodless chain; Or use Pfizer’s heated conveyors where doses will arrive as the transitional garage sets in by filling with dry ice for up to 15 days (these ultra-low freezers are expensive, however).
IDBEN WORLD HEALTH CONSEILLERS – Biden’s list of transition advisors released this week includes notable names for global health, which some advocates have taken as an indication. Some of these experts include:
Loyce Pace, Executive Director and Chair of the Global Health Council, is a member of the Covid-19 Transition Advisory Committee. This “defended the policies for access to medicines and essential exercises throughout the world,” said the transition.
Eric Goosby, an expert professor of infectious diseases and medicine, is on the same advisory committee, implemented the U. S. President’s emergency plan for the fight against AIDS managed by Obama and also worked as a United Nations special envoy for tuberculosis.
Rebecca Katz, director of the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Safety, advises the Covid-19 board of administrators and leads the national security/foreign policy tables for a separate coronavirus transition team, says Adam Cancryn of POLITICO. international health regulations and has in planning for a pandemic, according to his biography of Georgetown.
Linda Etim, Senior Advisor for Global Policy and Advocacy at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, leads the transition review of progression agencies, including the Agency for International Development (USAID), where she served for five years as Deputy Administrator for Africa. .
WHO MISSION IN CHINA – WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus indexed the United States on Tuesday as one of the countries sending experts to China to investigate the origins of the pandemic: Russia, Australia, Sudan, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and Japan, Vietnam and the United Kingdom.
It is known how many of them are Americans or what their affiliations are. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said the U. S. government was not going to be able to do so. But it’s not the first time He had sent 3 names: the CDC, the National Institutes of Health and the FDA, to WHO. however, none had been contacted through WHO. “If there’s an American on the home panel, he’s one of the 3 [U. S. government],” the spokesman said.
WHO declined to comment on its variety process.
IS AMERICA BACK AT THE HELM? Biden’s election generated hope that america will regain its leadership in global health, but will it be as undeniable as that?And this is something the world will fully accept after the Trump presidency has shown that America’s role would possibly depend more on who sits in the White House?Experts told Global Pulse that they believed the United States would continue to play a leading role, however. that things wouldn’t necessarily be what they were again.
“America doesn’t seem to continue the trajectory of retreating global establishments – and global fitness projects – that were noticed through some as a feature of the Trump administration,” said Kate Elder of Doctors Without Borders. “I think others people are waiting, hoping that the U. S. government will re-engage as a global partner,” he said.
Alex Harris, Wellcome’s head of global policy and defense, said he expects a “different kind” of global health leadership, even though the United States remains a heavyweight in science, experience, and funding. “Because what we want is collaboration, consensus “Leadership based, rather than any country, whatever it is, write to the front, taking other people with them,” he said. Multilateral establishments such as WHO are in a “new era, anyway,” largely due to politically changing influence in Asia and the East.
Jeremy Lim, director of the Leadership Institute for Global Health Transformation at the National University of Singapore, is more pessimistic about U. S. leadership clients. “There will be no transformation thanks to Biden,” he said, criticizing the poor pandemic functionality of the United States and Europe, especially compared to other countries, such as some in Asia. “Losing the ethical mandate to lead will be more vital to reshaping global leadership and influence,” he said.
America’s return to global health, while critical, is not the same as leadership, said Suerie Moon, director of studies at the Center for Global Health at the University Institute of Geneva. had a long way to go to catch up with Chinese vaccine diplomacy, with the country’s developers reaching agreements to stock up in some countries around the world. Sharing the source of vaccines or moving vaccine generation to other countries “would be a clear, undeniable and relatively undeniable way for the United States to demonstrate that it needs to cooperate for global health and that it is willing to embrace another taste for leadership in the post-Trump era,” Moon said.