The first shipments of a COVID-19 vaccine created through Western laboratories were recovered across the United States.
Five vaccines, three Western and two Chinese, are in three efficacy trials involving thousands of people.
In a wonderful announcement, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that a vaccine called “Sputnik V,” according to the Soviet satellite, confers “sustainable immunity” against the new coronavirus.
As the global rush to expand a vaccine, brands have made investments to help them prepare for millions of doses in a position to be administered in 2021 or even before the end of the year.
The University of Oxford, in collaboration with Swedish-British pharmaceutical organization AstraZeneca, expects to have effects until September, while the US biotech company Modern, in partnership with the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), aims to end the year, all likelihood in November.
United States: millions of doses
President Donald Trump has introduced “Operation Warp Speed” to develop, produce and distribute a COVID-19 vaccine to all Americans until January 2021.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been allocated to vaccine developers, adding nearly $500 million to Johnson and Johnson by the end of March.
The United States has budgeted more corporations than other countries in the hope that one of them will offer the vaccine to counter the highly contagious virus.
To date, Washington has distributed at least $9.4 billion to seven vaccine developers and signed production contracts with five of them to supply 700 million doses.
The corporations are: Johnson and Johnson, Modern, Oxford/ AztraZeneca, Novavax, Pfizer / BioNTech, Sanofi / GSK, Merck Sharp and Dohme.
Europe: millions of doses
Two vaccine developers, Oxford/AztraZeneca and Sanofi/GSK, have signed or are in complex negotiations with the European Commission to supply a total of 700 million doses of vaccine.
Great Britain, Japan, Brazil
Britain, due to Brexit, is negotiating a separate pre-order of 250 million doses from 4 developers.
Japan has 490 million doses from 3 suppliers, 250 million Novavax in the United States.
Japanese pharmacist Takeda bought the rights to a Novavax vaccine for Japan, which funded the research. It would occur locally.
Brazil selected a model, commissioned one hundred million doses from AstraZeneca and partnered with China’s Sinovac to produce 120 million “CoronaVac”, which is already being tested with Brazilians.
China, Russia
The clinical trials of two Chinese vaccine applicants, Sinovac and Sinopharm, are well advanced, but only a few foreign associations have been announced, that of Brazil and imaginable with Indonesia.
Russia stated that 20 countries had reserved one billion doses of Sputnik V and that, with foreign partners, 500 million doses would be produced according to the year in five countries.
Developing countries
The Coalition for Innovations in Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI), launched in 2017 through Norway, India, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, aims to “fair access” to long-term vaccines.
He ordered three hundred million doses of AstraZeneca in advance for dozens of emerging countries in partnership with The Vaccine Alliance (Gavi).
Billions of doses would be produced for Asia and through the giant Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine producer.