The development and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine present significant scientific, logistical, ethical, and economic challenges, with the potential to bring immense global benefit but also raise questions about equitable access and financial implications.
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teams of scientists around the world
are racing to develop a vaccine to end
the covert 19 pandemic
hundreds of volunteers are set to trial
a new vaccine against coronavirus
in the global race for a coronavirus
vaccine russia said today
it's already won but the challenge of
finding a vaccine
is only the first step to inoculating
everyone in the world
whichever country or company pioneers a vaccine
vaccine
will be in a powerful position but there
will be huge ethical questions about how
it's deployed fairly [Music]
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you submitted your questions to slovaya chancova
chancova
our healthcare correspondent and callum williams
williams
our senior economics writer here are
their answers
will there ever be a silver bullet vaccine
vaccine [Music]
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the short answer is we don't know there
are several vaccines
in late stage clinical trials but we
don't yet know
which of those will work in different
populations some of them may work
better in elderly people some of them
may be better at preventing the disease
versus preventing people from infecting others
others
so it remains to be seen what kind of vaccine
vaccine
we will have and there is a chance that
we may not have one
as well so vaccines that are at this
stage of clinical trials
you usually have a chance of success at about
about
80 percent so that's fairly high however
some of the vaccines are using novel technologies
technologies
meaning that the risk could be higher
how long would it take for the whole
world to be vaccinated
it will probably take a couple of years
at least
even if we have a successful vaccine
available as soon as this year and
that's because
manufacturing capacity around the world
is limited
some experts believe that in the first year
year
or through the end of 2021 we may have
just about two billion doses of a covet
19 vaccine
that's nowhere near enough to cover the
entire world
and of course it might be the case that
some people require more than one
dose right in order to become uh immune
so it might be that
two billion can only cover you know a
billion people or perhaps even fewer
who benefits financially from the vaccine
vaccine
the short answer is that everybody
benefits from the introduction of a
successful vaccine
um it's you can measure this a number of
different ways but uh at the moment the
global economy is
losing in the region of 200 to 250 billion
billion
dollars a week from the uh from the
economic effects of the pandemic
and so that means that even having a
vaccine even a single day
uh ahead of where you could expect it to
be is actually a really really good news
and it has benefits in the billions of dollars
dollars
i think it's fair to say that there will
be some countries and some people
uh that benefit financially much more
than others some of the pharmaceutical
companies that have the vaccines in late
stage trials have already said that they will
will
sell them at costs so on a non-profit
basis at least for the first year
but this pandemic has been so expensive
for the world
that you can see um how a vaccine can be
a very very precious commodity
that's true i mean i guess i would add
to that if it was gonna
uh incentivize people to develop the
vaccine faster or distribute it faster
i would see no reason why the person or
the team
or the company that manages to do that
really well
in my view they should also be
millionaires or billionaires because
they you know they should be allowed to
make a huge profit from this
because they would have done something that's
that's
so so socially useful that uh
if it makes a difference they deserve to
have that money how much will each vaccine
vaccine
cost the short answer is
is nobody really knows for sure um
that's because a lot of the deals
involving the vaccine companies and
governments haven't been disclosed
either the amount that's been paid or
um the amount of doses that the
companies have bought
i i've seen estimates ranging from a few
dollars per
vaccine shot to a few tens of dollars
per vaccine shot there is some
uncertainty about the production
costs as well because some of the these
vaccines are very new they've never been
made before
so nobody knows exactly what the cost of
manufacturing will be i i expect it's
the case that in most countries
people receiving the vaccines won't have
to pay anything
for the vaccines they'll be given out
for free i mean that may not be the case
in all countries but
i presume that would be the case in most
countries i mean i think there's a case
an economic case at least to be made for um
um
if people are not taking up the vaccine
for whatever reason to actually pay
people to
to take the vaccine rather than to get
them to pay because
um the benefits of people taking the
vaccine are so big that it's
it could in theory be worth governments
actually paying people
to to take it what percentage of
americans do you estimate will choose
not to get vaccinated
and how much of an issue will this be
it's difficult to predict how many
people will choose not to get vaccinated
we've seen in this pandemic that there
is a lot of misinformation
floating around and that may impact the
uptake of an eventual vaccine
so it is indeed a real danger we know that
that
uh for her demonity with this coronavirus
coronavirus
we need something like 70 of people to
be vaccinated
or um at least the people who are most vulnerable
vulnerable
to the disease if they get infected but
that's certainly a concern that people
not just in america but in many other countries
countries
may just refuse to be vaccinated
and there are some concerns because
vaccine development right now is
growing at such high speed that
some people might think that you know
developers are cutting corners and the
vaccine may be less safe or something
like that so
that's definitely um a problem that may
come up
i agree that you can't predict uh how
many people
will be sure to take it but i mean the
survey evidence that we have is
actually not that encouraging if you
look at
say yougov and someone have have polled
people in different countries on
whether they would take a covered
vaccine and america comes out quite near
the bottom
with only about sort of 50 percent of
people saying that they
would definitely take a vaccine which is
far far from where you would need to be
if you wanted to be a
herd immunity in an ideal world how
should a vaccine be optimally distributed
distributed
in an ideal world the very first doses
of the vaccine
should go to health care workers and
social care workers
they're most at risk of contracting the
disease we already know that
from the first phase of the pandemic the
next batch of vaccines should go to the
people who are most vulnerable
of dying if they become infected we
already know that
elderly people and those with certain
chronic conditions are particularly vulnerable
vulnerable
and then everybody else should come
after that
will new versions of the vaccine be
nobody knows this isn't virus that
nobody knew about
six or seven months ago so it remains to
be seen whether it will turn out
to be something similar to the flu where
the virus changes so a new vaccine
has to be used every year slightly
tweaked in some form
or the same vaccine can be reused
if it turns out that it only provides
immunity of a limited duration
will developing countries receive equal
access to the vaccine
or will they be left behind well they'll
be left behind for sure
um but i don't think there's any doubt
about that unfortunately
at the moment at least the coverage for uh
uh
for the poorest countries of the world
is extremely poor
it also depends on where the
manufacturing facilities for the
vaccines are based
and we've seen in past pandemics for example
example
in the swine flu pandemic in 2009 the
rich countries hoarded supplies of the vaccines
vaccines
and developing countries did not get any
of them
pretty much until the pandemic was over
so if manufacturing facilities are based
in one country that does not want to
export the vaccine before it covers
its entire population and it happens to
be a particularly big country
then chances are that everybody else in
the world has to wait in line
particularly developing countries should
richer countries pay for vaccines in the
developing world
yes which country should pay for
vaccines in the developing world
um particularly for those countries
which are you know especially
poor and find it especially difficult to
pay for enough doses for their citizens
i think
rich countries can also help in a more
indirect way though
um and that is by putting a lot of money towards
towards
increasing the global supply of
vaccines clearly there are limits on on on
on
what can be produced in a year but the
way that um
the way i see it is that we need to be
going at this as
as fast as possible if you were to be
able to do that then you would have more
of a chance
of basically giving the world
a sufficient supply or vaccine or even
an oversupply vaccine which would be no
bad thing there is already a global
mechanism called gavi the global
alliance for vaccines
which funds vaccines for poor countries
for the standard childhood vaccinations
and the idea is that with this pandemic
the same
vehicle can be used for rich countries
to finance
the vaccine for the poor world how
should we respond to crises like this
one in the future
well the good news is that the world is
our is already quite prepared we
we saw this uh in the current pandemic
where vaccine manufacture vaccine
development research
started as soon as the genetic cult of
the virus was published back in january
we're probably going to have a vaccine
as soon as the end of this year
ready to go what more can be done in the
future it's difficult to predict
there are all sorts of viruses flu viruses
viruses
maybe another coronavirus that may come
about so
setting up some sort of vaccine
manufacturing capacity
in advance that's ready to go
could be something that countries should
think about for the next one
here at the economist we are working
hard to keep you informed on how the
covet 19 pandemic is unfolding
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