Global vaccinations for Covid-19 will be costly, tricky and resisted by anti-vaxxers

Name: Pfizer coronavirus vaccine more than 90 per cent effective, US drug maker says
Uploaded: 2020-11-27T08:45:19.000Z
Duration: 2 min 30 s
Description: Pfizer coronavirus vaccine more than 90 per cent effective, US drug maker says

Getting the world vaccinated would probably cost the earth, including the expense of storage and distribution, not to mention the growing resistance to vaccination

While markets and pharmaceutical companies celebrate news that a vaccine will soon be ready for use, for most people relief may be a long way off

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Police officers speak to a protester at an anti-vaccine demonstration outside the offices of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation in central London on November 24. Photo: AFP

David Dodwell

Published: 4:45pm, 27 Nov 2020Updated: 10:20pm, 27 Nov 2020

Even before clinical trials have ended, news of the imminent readiness of vaccines to bring the Covid-19 pandemic under control has triggered celebrations, sighs of relief and yet another excuse for stock markets to rally.

But amid the celebration over the efficacy and pharmacological brilliance of the new vaccines – not least in Donald Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” task force, which at last has something it can brag about – there has been a fascinating opacity over two critical issues: the cost and how the vaccines will be delivered.

Even at the best of times, the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies are infamous for their culture of non-transparency over drug pricing. Details of their procurement contracts with governments are rarely revealed, and that remains the case amid the frenzied urgency to protect the world from Covid-19.

It is a measure of their bonanza that, according to The New York Times’ Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker, there are 55 potential vaccines in human trials, and another 87 preclinical vaccines being tested on animals. There are four vaccines in phase 3 trials in China alone, with a fifth beginning such trials this month.

Most attention has been focused on the 13 potential vaccines in phase 3 large-scale testing, and the six approved for early, limited use. Even here – with detailed negotiations under way with various governments – the cost of vaccinating the world’s 7.8 billion population is only dimly recognised. Be assured, it will be huge – dwarfed only by the economic cost of the pandemic itself, which the World Economic Forum estimates at US$8.1-15.8 trillion.

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Pfizer coronavirus vaccine more than 90 per cent effective, US drug maker says

At the cheaper end of the scale, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine could be priced around US$3-4 per dose (AstraZeneca has promised to sell at cost until at least next July). If its two-dose treatment were used to vaccinate the world, it could cost more than US$60 billion.

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