Just 2% of the more than 5.7 billion total coronavirus vaccine doses administered thus far have gone to people in Africa, according to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The global humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders-known internationally as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)- estimates that at least seven manufacturers on the African continent "currently meet the prerequisites to produce mRNA vaccines, if all necessary technology and training were openly shared."īut Pfizer and Moderna, the makers of the two available mRNA vaccines, have refused to voluntarily participate in technology-sharing efforts facilitated by the WHO, leaving developing countries largely without access to the shots. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization "The longer vaccine inequity persists, the more the virus will keep circulating and changing." Speaking to the Washington Post on Wednesday, Rizvi specifically called on the Biden administration to "help the world produce more vaccines by sharing the rest of the vaccine recipe."ĭespite pressure to do so from public health advocates and a leading National Institutes of Health scientist who helped develop key vaccine technology, the Biden administration has thus far declined to compel pharmaceutical giants to share their recipes and technological know-how with low-income countries. In exchange for reasonable compensation to originator corporations, governments should release the information they hold. In the U.S., the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and the Department of Defense have access to this information under vaccine development contracts In addition to specifications, it includes information about chemical characteristics methods of manufacture, including raw material sources flow charts of the manufacturing process, complete with a list of all tests performed at each step process controls drug substance batch records and drug product master production records. Public Citizen emphasized in its analysis Wednesday that the manufacturing details laid out in the contract represent "just a small fraction of the information about Covid vaccines that rich countries currently possess."Īs part of the regulatory process, manufacturers submit chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC) data. "This leaked contract teaches the world more about how to make mRNA vaccines than anything done by rich countries so far," he argued. Rizvi pointed out that the World Health Organization (WHO) is currently "trying to teach developing countries how to make mRNA vaccines and could desperately use help." "This info can help mRNA vaccine scientists by illustrating the kinds of requirements they need to meet critical quality standards," said Zain Rizvi, a law and policy researcher at Public Citizen who authored the group's analysis of the contract. In the 104-page contract, Public Citizen found a list of manufacturing specifications for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, including particular composition and strength, identity, and purity requirements followed throughout the production process. The document (pdf) analyzed by Public Citizen is an agreement that the European Commission reached with Pfizer and BioNTech last November to purchase 100 million doses of the companies' mRNA vaccine, which was developed with the support of government funding and U.S. "This info can help mRNA vaccine scientists by illustrating the kinds of requirements they need to meet critical quality standards." While combing through a leaked contract published earlier this year by an Italian broadcaster, the U.S.-based consumer advocacy group Public Citizen identified a component of Pfizer-BioNTech's secretive coronavirus vaccine recipe-a discovery that could help manufacturers around the world replicate the lifesaving shot.
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