Vaccinate the rich: Pfizer’s Covid-19 shot seen as too costly for poorer nations

Name: Pfizer coronavirus vaccine more than 90 per cent effective, US drug maker says
Uploaded: 2020-11-11T13:17:11.000Z
Duration: 2 min 30 s
Description: Pfizer coronavirus vaccine more than 90 per cent effective, US drug maker says

Expensive cold-chain infrastructure is needed to deliver Pfizer’s experimental vaccine, which many developing countries will be unable to afford

The alternative? Wait for a slower, more conventional vaccine that can be delivered through existing health care networks

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Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine must be thawed from minus 70 degrees Celsius and injected within five days, or it goes bad. Photo: Reuters

Bloomberg

Published: 9:17pm, 11 Nov 2020Updated: 9:16pm, 11 Nov 2020

When Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine rolls off production lines, Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Company will be waiting to distribute it through a complex and costly system of deep-freeze airport warehouses, refrigerated vehicles and inoculation points across China.

After they reach vaccination centres, the shots must be thawed from minus 70 degrees Celsius and injected within five days, if not they go bad.

Then the Herculean journey from warehouse freezer to rolled-up sleeve must be undertaken all over again – to deliver the second booster shot a month later.

The road map sketched out by the company, which has licensed the vaccine for China, offers a glimpse into the enormous and daunting logistical challenges faced by those looking to deliver Pfizer’s experimental vaccine after it showed “extraordinary” early results from final stage trials, raising hopes of a potential end to the nearly year-long pandemic.

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

That euphoria is now being diluted by the realisation that no currently used vaccine has ever been made from the messenger RNA technology deployed in Pfizer’s shot, which instructs the human body to produce proteins that then develop protective antibodies.