Coronavirus: Vaccines Not Enough to End Pandemic, Experts Say

Johnson & Johnson’s race to manufacture 1 billion servings Coronavirus Vaccines are increasing in a small biotechnology plant near Baltimore Interstate 95. But even when technicians are preparing to put a 1,000-liter plastic bag of material into a steel tank to brew the first batch of vaccine, international concern is that which country is the first Is emerging about what to receive.

The Baltimore plant is the second of four planned locations in the world where Johnson & Johnson plans to shed the vaccine on a large scale months before testing the first dose in humans. The manufacturing head start is part of the global struggle to protect humanity from viruses that are not believed to die on their own.

If Sars-CoV-2 establishes that it is a stubborn, influenza-like endemic virus, medical experts will be able to make billions of doses of unprecedented effort for at least a few years. There is almost no doubt that there is no such vaccine. According to scientists, about 70% of the world’s population, or 5.6 billion people, will need to be vaccinated to establish and delay the spread of herd immunity.

Still, nationalistic priorities for individual countries, wherever they are on Earth, can impede their strategic obligation to control hotspots-including poor countries where vaccines cannot be purchased. of America In particular, vaccine What was developed there as part of the Go-it-Alone approach was China Or Europe..

The most feared scenario for public health professionals is a global battle in which manufacturers sell only to the highest bidders, wealthy countries try to buy supplies, and manufacturers want to serve their citizens. A country that stores vaccines.

“The model of a country that thinks of itself will not work. Even if you live somewhere, it’s somehow perfect without any infections. Unless you trade across borders, the best way to fight the virus Efforts will fail, “said Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, a public-private partnership that helps provide vaccines to developing countries. “This is a global problem that requires a global solution.”

International health advocates want to avoid a 2009 recurrence. Barrack Obama – Leading the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, there was little supply in developing countries until the pandemic subsided.

Such an approach Donald Trump And other world leaders with their own worried population, who have nationalistic urges, want to reduce deadly threats and restore the economy.

In the United States, the federal agency responsible for emergency vaccine development has shown that it prioritizes domestic concerns. This is the “America-first” way of thinking that shaped much of the Trump administration’s pandemic response.

“Currently we are focusing on the US-wide approach needed to promote vaccine use,” asked.

With the task of protecting Americans from biological threats, Bada has sent nearly $ 500 million of emergency funding to Johnson & Johnson to develop a vaccine. It has also funded hundreds of millions of dollars in vaccine work by leading French pharmaceutical company Sanofi and Moderna, a Massachusetts biotechnology company that has partnered with a Swiss company to manufacture vaccines.

“By working with multiple companies, we’ll be able to reach more goals,” to increase the likelihood that the United States will get one or more vaccines as soon as possible, “Disbrow said.

Global crackdowns on protective equipment and ventilators that have left poor countries empty-handed suggest that competition for vaccines may be at least as fierce. Dozens of companies, large and small, are rushing to develop vaccines using different technologies and approaches. Pharmaceutical consulting firm Avalere Health tracks at least 120 individual vaccine projects sponsored by governments, universities, nonprofit organizations, and private companies.

Producing viable products from these experiments and clinical trials requires extensive manufacturing capabilities. Some vaccines require two doses and may put more pressure on manufacturing capacity. Some senior officials of the Trump administration are paying attention to this issue. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Anthony ForchBoth doctors, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, co-authored an article promoting Monday’s international collaboration published in Science magazine on Monday.

“Costs, distribution systems, cold chain requirements, and widespread coverage delivery are all potential constraining points in ultimately delivering vaccines to individuals and communities,” they wrote. “All of these issues require global collaboration between organizations involved in healthcare delivery and the economy.”

Recognizing the financial and logistics bottlenecks of small biotechnology companies, Bill Gates, Philanthropist and founder of Microsoft, announced in April Daily show with Trevor Noah The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will make billions of dollars available to help seven private companies build manufacturing capacity.

Vaccine competition is fraught with risk because no one knows which project will succeed. As a result, companies can scale up to produce millions of vaccines and eventually lose value. There is another risk.

If the best vaccines come from other countries or international cooperation, such as development and manufacturing co-ops where world leaders have promised billions of dollars for this month in an online event skipped by the Trump administration, the United States is in a good position. May not be there. Officials of the Trump administration have not stated their attribution this month under the White House’s rules regarding a statement to reporters, but said the US will support such efforts despite skipping questions and answers. It was

“Before knowing who is the winner, we now need to lay the foundation for global vaccine sharing. It is basically negotiated. There is no global framework or protocol, and there is no existing way to do this. There is no framework, “said Jeremy Condik, senior policy fellow at the Global Development Center, who worked on the US Government’s response at the International Development Center. Obama administration disaster. “We don’t want the situation of who has and who doesn’t, based on who gets the vaccine, who has the capacity to produce, and who has the wealth.”

Much of the international anger during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic eleven years ago was centered on supply contracts secured by the Western government at vaccine makers. Under the Barack Obama administration, the United States has a contract to enable 600 million doses in 2009, and has a large share of the potential global supply.

Later, a stronger framework for an international plan for influenza vaccines was established. However, these frameworks do not automatically apply to coronaviruses. David Fiddler, senior senior researcher on cybersecurity and global health at the Foreign Relations Council and a visiting professor at the University of Washington School of Law in St. Louis, said the countries would work together to find that the threat of coronavirus is extremely high. Could make it difficult. – Especially in the US, we are experiencing the highest Covid-19 case load and mortality in the world.

“Access to the vaccine as a safety valve to relieve its political and economic pressure will be astronomical to anyone in the White House. If Joe Biden wins in November, that pressure will be It won’t go away, “he said.

Mr. Fiddler also said that large pharmaceutical companies could face another vaccine deal as they face pressure to recoup their investment.

“For pharmaceutical companies that manufacture vaccines, the highest return on investment customers are in high-income countries,” Fiddler said. “In order to get a better return on investment, someone needs to buy it.”

More than 80 million Americans were vaccinated during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, according to Centres for Disease Control and Prevention data. This is about the same as the total dose received in 77 countries, based on the distribution plans planned in 77 countries. who.

“Wealthier countries dominated the vaccines and poorer countries were left behind. They later got the vaccines, but the vaccinations diminished,” said Duke University Director of Policy Impact Centers for Global Health. Gavin Yamei said in a college podcast. He said it would be a catastrophic mistake to allow the scenario to be repeated in the fight against the coronavirus.

“Unless we make this vaccine available worldwide, we can’t end a pandemic, because it happens everywhere, everywhere.”

Vada has not signed a contract with Johnson & Johnson or any other company to administer a particular dose. “It’s premature at this point,” Disbrow said.

“It suggests that about 300 million vaccines are available each year in the United States,” Johnson & Johnson said, which is sufficient to vaccinate 90% of the US’s 330 million population. That number of doses is in line with the projected annual capacity at the Baltimore plant, which is operated by a listed company called Emergent BioSolutions and is funded as one of four Federal Development and Manufacturing Innovation Centers.

When asked about Disbro’s allegations, Johnson & Johnson’s top executives said they needed to evaluate global priorities to prevent a pandemic, as well as specific amounts of vaccination in the United States and I didn’t commit when.

The company hopes to produce 1 billion doses by the end of 2021 and make the first dose available this winter. In an interview, Johnson & Johnson executive vice president and chief scientific officer Paul Stoffels said that where the vaccine was most needed was unknown, healthcare workers would be a top priority.

Stoffels said Johnson & Johnson promises to meet demand wherever it is most needed. The company is also not interested in making money with the coronavirus vaccine, he said.

“It’s very difficult to determine where the epidemic is going at that time,” Stoffels said in an interview. “We take it honestly. We believe that our priorities are those who need it most, first among healthcare workers and those at high risk, and perhaps anywhere in the world.

“On the one hand, we work very closely with the United States, but on the other hand, we do our best to contribute to the world.”

According to Johnson & Johnson, vaccine technology is particularly suitable for developing regions. Dosage vials can be shipped at relatively warm temperatures during the final stages of shipping. In addition to Baltimore, the company plans to manufacture vaccines in its own plant in the Netherlands, looking for at least two other locations in Asia and Europe. Stoffels also said he had a deal with a glass vial maker to buy a five-dose vial to alleviate the packaging shortage.

Pfizer has tested multiple vaccine candidates, has identified plants in the US and Belgium, has secured a supply chain, and will be able to administer 10 to 20 million doses by autumn and hundreds of millions next year The goal is to become. ..

“We think completely out of the ordinary, quoted and non-quoted things. We’re coming up with our own approach and negotiating contracts with our suppliers. Points of clinical data Has not been identified, “says Kathrin Jansen, Pfizer’s Head of Vaccine R & D. “It’s unheard of.”

The Pfizer vaccine was developed by the German company BioNTech and contains genetic material encapsulated in lipid droplets consisting of four different lipids. Prior to knowing an advancing vaccine, Pfizer needed to secure enough of each of these lipids. Pfizer’s manager needed the enzyme to make the genetic material called RNA, so he had to find a supplier to ensure that the supply was sufficient for the anticipated demand.

At the top of the logistic supply chain is scientific uncertainty. Pfizer’s planning scenario builds on the “worst case prediction” that the final vaccine will be the one that requires the highest dose. If the company succeeds in another version-it makes about one tenth the dose because it makes a copy once in the cell-Pfizer may be thinking of billions of doses instead of hundreds there is.

“These are all wildcards, and the current plan needs some flexibility,” Jansen said. “You don’t need too little capacity or too much capacity. I don’t know how much space you need. It’s a very interesting dance being done to get it right now and no one I’ve never done it. “

Jansen said the global community needs to understand how vaccines can be distributed fairly throughout the world through organizations such as WHO. She didn’t say where the Pfizer vaccine would go. “I am confident that by the time we face a problem, plans will be implemented to ensure that we have a fair deployment,” Jansen said.

Moderna has a factory in the suburbs of Boston and can administer 100 million doses per year. This month, the company announced a 10-year partnership with Lonza, a Swiss contract development and manufacturing company that will help boost production by launching production in July. This partnership will allow us to expand our manufacturing capacity to 1 billion operations per year.

Moderna CEO Stefan Banssel says the government wants companies like him to place large orders before the product is officially approved. A sharp increase in demand if regulation goes smoothly.

“If we start stockpiling right now, we have all the products we have made to date available on the launch date.”

Washington Post