A total of 44 projects are currently underway around the world for the discovery of the coronavirus vaccine. Kate Broderick is one of the team of scientists and researchers involved in this work. He is a microbial geneticist.
Kate Broderick works for Innovio, a biotechnology company in the United States. The company hopes to make one million doses of the Ecovid-Nineteen vaccine by December this year. But where can this vaccine be found, who will be given?
This question occasionally pops into Dr. Broderick's mind. One of the sisters of this scientist from Scotland works as a nurse in the British National Health Service or NHS.
"My sister is fighting every day to help patients with coronavirus. So I'm definitely worried about who will get this vaccine and whether it will be on everyone's forehead. We have to make this vaccine ready."
Vaccine Storage
There is a growing concern that rich countries will try to stockpile the vaccines that companies like Inovio are trying to make.
Seth Berkeley, an epidemiologist, is one of the experts who is talking about such concerns. He fears an immunization gap or vaccine could create inequality.
Seth Berkeley is the CEO of The Vaccine Alliance. The organization works to reach people in 63 of the world's poorest countries with vaccine benefits. It is a subsidiary of the World Health Organization.
"The coronavirus vaccine may not be ready yet, but we need to talk about it now," said Dr. Berkeley.
"The big challenge for us will be to make enough vaccines not only for those who need vaccines in rich countries, but also for those who need vaccines in poor countries."
"I'm worried, of course. There's always been a lot of bad things. We have to do the right thing here," said Dr. Berkeley.
His fears are not unfounded. This has been the case in many previous vaccinations. A German newspaper recently quoted a senior government official as saying that US President Trump had failed in his attempt to buy a vaccine only for Americans.
The vaccine was developed by the German biotechnology company Kiervac.
Hepatitis B vaccine discrimination
The biggest example of this difference in vaccines is the hepatitis-B vaccine. Hepatitis-B is the leading cause of liver cancer in the world. According to the World Health Organization, it is 50 times more contagious than HIV.
In 2015, the number of people infected with the hepatitis-B virus in the world was 256 million.
The virus was introduced to rich countries in 1982. But by 2000, less than 10 percent of people in poor countries had been vaccinated.
An organization called Gavi is working to eliminate this inequality of vaccine. It was built by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates. They have been able to significantly reduce the serious inequality in vaccination. Because the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and the governments of different countries have been able to deal with it.
Another organization that is doing a great job in this regard is the 'Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations'. The Norwegian-based organization was set up in 2016 to develop vaccines using public and private grants.
This organization is in favor of making all vaccines available for everyone to use.
In a statement, they said, "Covid-Nineteen has proven that infectious disease does not mean political boundaries. We cannot tackle the global threat of an infectious disease unless we ensure fairness in vaccination."
Two kinds of reality
But in reality the situation is actually twofold.
An example is a vaccine called Gardasil. It was invented by US laboratory Merek in 2006. The human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine was approved by the US authorities in 2014.
This HPV is mainly responsible for cervical cancer (cervical cancer) in the world. But the HPV vaccine is available in only 19 least developed countries in the world. However, 75 percent of the world's cervical cancer deaths are in developing countries.
Why this crisis? To understand that, we need to know the trade that goes on around the world with vaccines.
Profit from vaccination
Vaccines are not a major part of the day-to-day business of pharmaceutical companies. The global pharmaceutical market is worth about ২ 1.2 trillion (2016 figures). Of these, vaccines are bought and sold for only 40 billion.
It is clear from these statistics why the financial risk of making a vaccine is higher than that of making a medicine.
Vaccine research and then making it is quite costly. And before the vaccine is released on the market, the rules and regulations that have to be tested are very strict.
And public sector companies that buy vaccines from pharmaceutical companies pay much lower prices than private companies. As a result, vaccines are not as attractive as a for-profit product. Especially the vaccines that a person has to take only once in his life.
In 1986, 28 companies in the United States developed vaccines. Now it has come down to only 5. Because pharmaceutical companies are no longer interested in disease prevention, they are interested in treating the disease.
However, the situation has changed a bit. Two doses of HPV vaccine cost about 351 in some organizations and Bill Gates states. In the UK it is only given free to 12 and 13 year olds.
But under Gavi, a low-cost immunization system in poor countries, HPV costs about 5 dollar per dose in those countries.
Concerns about the free market
So rich countries have a good chance of making a profit with vaccines. Especially to bring up the initial cost of researching the vaccine and making it.
According to the British Association of Pharmaceutical Industries, it cost about 1.6 billion to develop a new vaccine.
"If we leave the matter to the market, only people in rich countries will get the Covid-Nineteen vaccine," said Mark Jeet, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
"We've seen this happen with a lot of vaccines before. But if something like this happens this time, it will be a very big tragedy."
Consensus
If Innovio succeeds in inventing the Covid-Nineteen vaccine, they will have to reach an agreement with a major pharmaceutical company to produce millions of doses of it.
Over the past few years, many pharmaceutical companies have publicly pledged to work to ensure that everyone is vaccinated.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. They are involved in many initiatives to discover the Covid-Nineteen vaccine.
"Everyone in the health sector must work together to defeat Covid-Nineteen. We strongly believe that cooperation between scientists, industry, market regulators, government and health workers is all about protecting people from this global epidemic and finding a solution," said Emma Walmsley, CEO of the company. Will help to find.
Gavi's Seth Berkeley said the same thing. An understanding and cooperation is essential to avoid an immunization gap.
"Making a vaccine available to everyone will not be an overnight task. But that doesn't mean only those who can afford it will get it."
"If we can't give the vaccine to the places where it is most needed, the epidemic will continue."
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