Despite the fact that the Dominican state, through millions of dollars, has agreed to sufficient vaccines for almost all citizens of the country, the concern now goes to when they will be received and how many, indeed, would arrive.
And, when reviewing the agreements that the Government has concluded with the developers Pfizer / BioNTech and AstraZeneca, there are the same clauses that have generated conflicts in other countries due to the delivery deadlines of the desired vaccines.
Basically, these pharmaceutical companies have reached agreements with several nations that protect them from sanctions in almost all circumstances.
The protection extends to situations such as delays in the administration of inoculations and non-compliance with the expected amount of vaccines, scenarios that have been repeated several times internationally.
One example of this is in Europe, especially with members of the European Union, where AstraZeneca and Pfizer have had difficulty meeting the agreed amount of vaccines, facing several delays in the process.
Pfizer has repeatedly had to apologize in statements, explaining that deliveries will be delayed in various European countries, such as Austria, Italy and Belgium, with the common denominator in the messages being the promise to reduce production rates now and then later. . she and fulfills what has been promised.
However, despite delays in the first two months of 2021, Pfizer has announced that it has reassessed its vaccine production target for this year from 1.3 billion doses to 2 billion.
Europe has also had trouble getting the doses agreed with AstraZeneca, to the point where they have had to meet several times to find a way out of an issue that has led to accusations and tense exchanges between the two sides.
One factor of dispute between the two sides is that AstraZeneca has managed to comply with its program with the United Kingdom, but it has not been so with the European Union.
To this is added the speculation of favoritism, as not only the United Kingdom is a former member of the European Union, but also two of the four AstraZeneca laboratories dedicated to the manufacture of the vaccine are located in Britain (the other two are in Belgium and Germany).
Moreover, this inoculation was developed together with the University of Oxford, one of the emblematic centers of education and research in England and, by extension, the United Kingdom.
In this regard, the CEO of AstraZeneca, Pascal Soriot, said that this is due to the fact that the pharmaceutical company had signed its contract three months earlier with the United Kingdom and this gave the company time to remedy the defects in British factories.
However, Soriot said they did not commit to delivering all the agreed doses, citing the article “the best possible effort” in the signed contract.
“In any case, we have not committed ourselves to the European Union… it is not a contractual commitment. I said: we will do everything we can, but without guaranteeing that we will get there “, said the CEO.
This led to a response from the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides, via the social network Twitter.
“The European Union remains united and firm. The contractual obligations must be fulfilled, the vaccines must be delivered to the citizens “, read part of the tweet of the official of the European Union.
The same “best possible” clause is included in the agreement signed by the Dominican Republic with the British pharmaceutical company.
Kyriakides’ answer struck another nerve on the subject: the contract. This is due to the fact that the agreement between the European Union and AstraZeneca was called into question by the large number of clauses that were censored by the public, much of the information being barred, which makes the contract virtually unintelligible, in in accordance with the signed confidentiality clause.
The Dominican Republic has also signed a confidentiality clause with the pharmaceutical company Pfizer.
Among the few known data is the fact that the pre-purchase contract with AstraZeneca and the European Union, signed in August last year, provides for the delivery of up to 400 million doses.
However, there are closer examples of these cases. In Mexico, where we will receive AstraZeneca vaccines, 1.4 million doses of Pfizer product were expected, according to the newspaper El País.
According to the aforementioned news portal, this amount has been calculated to inoculate about 750,000 people in the Mexican health system, plus other people working on the front line against the virus.
However, they reported that by Monday, this week, they had managed to deliver only about 675,202 doses of vaccines, truncating the inoculation program of the Mexican state’s vaccination plan.
In the Dominican Republic
Starting with the agreement with Pfizer, which is indeed a “specification” that serves as the basis for the final contract (which will include more sections than the current document contains), it has a confidentiality requirement similar to that of the American pharmaceutical company. done.with other nations.
But what Pfizer has in the country is immunity to possible non-conformities, such as delays in delivery or some variations in quantity.
In fact, the company will not suffer any punishment if some of these scenarios occur and will not be held accountable for them, which is problematic, given that it could not even meet the initial 25,000 vaccines promised by the President of the Republic, Luis Abinader, for last month.
As for AstraZeneca, the similarity of the best effort clause is worrying, as the contract with the country has a section on “best reasonable efforts”.
‘The activities and degree of effort that an enterprise of a similar size, with a similar infrastructure and comparable resources, such as AstraZeneca, would undertake or use in the development and manufacture of a vaccine, produced in the development or marketing stage relevant, given the urgent need for a vaccine to end a pandemic that results in serious health problems, restrictions on personal freedoms and economic impact, worldwide, but taking into account efficacy and safety, “read part of the agreement which defines “best reasonable efforts” regarding the responsibilities of AstraZeneca.
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How many vaccines does RD have?
In total, there are 20 million vaccines that the country would receive through AstraZeneca, Pfizer and the Global Access Fund for COVID-19 Vaccines (COVAX).
Approximately 10 million doses were purchased from AstraZeneca, with the first delivery arriving on March 21, according to the preliminary delivery schedule set out in the contract, continuing with monthly deliveries until at least September 2021.
Eight million will come through Pfizer, although when they arrive it is the relevant question, from the signed specifications specifying only that they will arrive in batches from the second quarter of this year (between April and June).
The remaining amount will be provided by COVAX, although it is not known when they will arrive in the country