The first shipment of COVAX vaccine arrives in Ghana, a hope for the developing world

The first shipment of Covid-19 vaccines delivered through the World Health Organization’s COVAX program arrived in Ghana on Wednesday, a hopeful turning point for developing countries that risk falling behind in the global race for vaccines against a virus that killed nearly 2.5 million people worldwide.

The flight brought 600,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine, which is considered much easier to distribute to developing countries because it does not require extremely cold storage temperatures, such as Pfizer-GenTech and Moderna vaccines.

Vaccines delivered on Wednesday will be a priority for front-line medical workers, people over the age of 60 and those with pre-existing health conditions, according to the Ghana Ministry of Information.

“Today marks the historic moment for which we have planned and worked so hard,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a joint statement from her agency and WHO Ghana.

“With the first delivery of doses, we can fulfill the promise of the COVAX Facility to ensure that people in less affluent countries will not lag behind in the race for life-saving vaccines.”

COVAX is a global plan co-led by WHO, an international vaccine alliance called Gavi and the Coalition for Innovation in Epidemic Preparedness.

As richer nations promote the development and costly purchase of vaccines, poorer countries suffer the consequences of inequality. Mark Suzman, executive director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said in December that it may already be too late for the equitable distribution of vaccines due to massive transactions already brokered by rich countries.

Wealthy nations, which make up only 14 percent of the world’s population, provided 53 percent of the world’s supply of the best coronavirus vaccines by December, according to a group of human rights activists called the People’s Vaccine Alliance.

COVAX was set up to pursue equitable access to the vaccine globally, with the aim of vaccinating 20% ​​of people in the world’s poorest countries by the end of 2021 through donations. Several middle-income countries are to purchase COVAX vaccines on their own. The plan aims to deliver 2 billion doses of vaccines this year that have been approved as safe and effective by the WHO.

The images delivered to Ghana were produced by the Serum Institute of India, which has been granted access to intellectual property that allows it to produce vaccines using the Oxford-AstraZeneca formula. The African Union has provided approximately 670 million doses of the Serum Institute vaccine to its member countries and aims for 60% of Africa’s 1.3 billion people to be inoculated in the next two to three years.

“This is amazingly significant. We want the gap between the time rich and the poor to be vaccinated to be reduced to zero,” said Hassan Damluji, deputy director for global policy and advocacy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. an interview for CNBC.

“We know that it normally takes decades between a vaccine first developed and used in rich countries and then reaching the world’s poorest people. So for Ghana to receive their first shipment, just three months after the first vaccine launches in the world are beyond exceptional, “he said.” It’s by far the fastest of all time. “

The Gates Foundation has spent $ 1.75 billion on coronavirus efforts and has focused its efforts on vaccine development under COVAX.

Damluji noted that the procurement of the vaccine program for poor countries was fully funded by donors at a time when every developed world economy is in recession. “So it’s pretty remarkable,” he said.

Excluding poor countries from launching vaccination programs in richer countries will have devastating and prolonged consequences, warn economists and public health experts, dramatically widening inequalities, hampering social and economic development and leaving dozens of countries with a significantly higher debt.

These inequalities mean that the long-term economic damage of the pandemic will be twice as severe in emerging markets as in developed ones, according to Oxford Economics. And a study by RAND Corporation predicts that the global economy will lose $ 153 billion a year if emerging countries do not have access to vaccines.

Countries that are part of the COVAX donation plan are set to get doses commensurate with their populations: Afghanistan will receive 3 million doses, for example, while Namibia receives just under 130,000.

The Palestinian Territories expect to receive COVAX vaccines in March; Iran and Iraq are also part of COVAX, as are many lower-income countries in the Middle East. The richer Gulf states have purchased their own vaccine deliveries directly from producers, while some also contribute to the COVAX donation fund, despite suffering their own recessions: Saudi Arabia has contributed $ 300 million, and Qatar donated $ 10 million.

The United States did not contribute to the COVAX facility under the Trump administration, but the Biden administration promised the largest donation to date – $ 4 billion.

Damluji noted the challenges of COVAX’s goals, conducting expansive inoculation campaigns in countries with poor infrastructure, limited logistics and transportation options, remote populations and, in some cases, violence and war.

“These things are a moving target. Rightly, the world’s attention is on this and he wants to make sure it’s going well,” he said. “But a few months ago, I didn’t even know what vaccines would work. And now people need them on their doorstep.”

“There will be some complications,” he added. “It’s the biggest medical acquisition effort ever.”