Moderna has pledged to make its vaccine available to poor countries, but most vaccines have gone to richer countries.

But more than a year later, and as the pandemic continued to spread, Moderna’s successful vaccine was no longer available. The company sold most of the early doses to rich countries. The poorest countries have been locked down almost entirely, said Suerie Moon, associate director of the Institute for Global Health’s Center for Global Health. “Our conversation appears to have refused to allocate or sell any of its supplies outside the richest countries, the most profitable markets.” When asked about the $ 900,000 grant, fair access provisions, and calls for the Moderna vaccine to be widely available, company spokeswoman Colin Hussey referred the Washington Post to a more than three-month-old press release about its fiscal third quarter. The results, which indicated that discussions with Covax – an initiative to distribute vaccines equitably around the world – were “ongoing”. To be sure, Moderna isn’t the only coronavirus vaccine maker to strike deals with rich countries. Only 16 percent of the world’s population got 60 percent of their doses, according to an estimate by researchers at Duke University, but Moderna’s record is prominent because none of its doses have yet been assigned to what the World Bank classifies as low-income countries. CEPI said most of its competitors – Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson – have already pledged Covax, an effort co-led by its first backer, CEPI, as well as the World Health Organization and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. She is still in talks with Moderna about supplying Kovacs but has not provided details on where things are. The World Health Organization, which is co-driving Covax and advocates for accessing the vaccine, referred The Post to Gavi, who referred The Post to CEPI. Meanwhile, Moderna sells the vast majority of its early doses to high-income buyers, including the United States, the European Union and Canada, where immunization campaigns are already underway, and it is also working with the Philippines, a low-middle-income country, and with high-income countries. The higher average is like Colombia and possibly Mexico, according to researchers at Duke University and Airfinity Research Tracking. But since these countries are too late, it may take time for their doses to arrive. Advocates for global health are frustrated by the disparities. “They are being deployed in rich countries even though a foundation committed to fair access funds them – said Zain Razavi, an expert on drug access at Public Citizen, a watchdog group, part of the problem is supply. Rich countries can take risks and strike early deals on technology that is not Only some of the bets on vaccines have paid off. But as a result, they have received a disproportionate share of the 2021 supply – leaving the rest of the world waiting, and then there is the price issue. Besides the Pfizer-BioNTech offer, Moderna is among the The most expensive multiple vaccines purchased by the United States and the European Union, but Pfizer, which has a similar vaccine on offer, agreed last month to supply Covax with up to 40 million doses at a “not-for-profit” rate. Generating wealth for executives and investors – of a similar plan, despite the role CEPI played in developing it.CEPI’s investment in Moderna is at a critical stage nowadays.The deal was announced on January 23, 2020, less than two weeks after it was published. Chinese researchers for the first time have the genetic sequence of the new Coronavirus in an online database, a week before the World Health Organization declares a public health emergency of international concern. Stefan Bansel thanked CEPI and the National Institutes of Health, which played an important role in developing the vaccine, saying, according to a press release, “Progress in global public health requires a collective effort from public-private partnerships.” “Early catalytic funding for the foundation from Moderna was critical to project completion,” said Rachel Grant, a spokeswoman for CEPI, who is headquartered in Oslo. But CEPI and Moderna have not reached an agreement to fund the second stage. Grant said the relationship didn’t go any further, because the company’s financing needs had been met elsewhere – through what would become the Trump administration’s Warp Speed ​​operation. Modern received multiple payments from the US government. By December, it had received $ 4.1 billion for vaccine development, clinical trials, and manufacturing, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. President Biden announced on Thursday that he would exercise an option to purchase an additional 100 million doses of Moderna vaccine, unlike China and Russia, which have tried to use potential vaccines to boost their soft power abroad, and the White House has focused particularly on the domestic supply. President Donald Trump chose to withdraw from Kovacs, citing his hostility with the WHO. The Biden administration tried to fix things with the Geneva-based organization, and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke of helping “make sure that others around the world want [a vaccine] However, the United States remains focused on vaccinating Americans and has not announced any plans to participate, either bilaterally or through Covax, and public health experts have tried to sound the alarm. Scientists warn that leaving low-income countries pending Adequate vaccine supplies will prolong the pandemic. Economists warn that “vaccine nationalism” could cost the world more than a trillion dollars a year in gross domestic product. A coalition called the People’s Vaccine Campaign in South Africa recently called on the US government to push Moderna, specifically , To make its Coronavirus vaccine more accessible outside of the United States. ”The United States government helped research and pay for the development of the NIH-Moderna vaccine, however, as it is now, Moderna unilaterally decided that very few countries You will benefit from it, “as they said in the release” and so we ask you to – enforce your rights in this case and make sure that Moderna and other companies supported by the US government abide by their obligations. Your actions will undoubtedly help save millions of lives in our country and elsewhere in the global South. “Even as public health organizations call for an end to vaccine nationalism, some seem to be wary of pushing the companies that control vaccine supplies. Advocates question why those tasked with promoting global public health have not summoned pharmaceutical companies more aggressively to disclose the terms of their vaccine contracts. , For example, or urged vaccine makers to transfer knowledge to parts of the world in desperate need of a vaccine. In a recent report on Covax, Public Citizen Rizvi urged CEPI to press Moderna about fair access. The report argued that CEPI should publish its contracts with The pharmaceutical company and to press publicly for a more equitable distribution. When asked if CEPI would do so, Grant said that the CEPI Board of Directors has full access to its agreements but contains “detailed confidential and financial information, which is proprietary” and thus the organization is not entitled to publish it in full She said that some of her agreements with publicly traded companies must file a file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, but noted that contracts are often “revised to protect technology and confidential business information.” “Covax is still in active discussions with Moderna regarding vaccine procurement for global customization,” said Grant, “and we hope they will commit to supporting our mission to ensure equitable global access to covid-19 vaccines alongside other manufacturers in the Covax portfolio.”