The WHO affirms that Latin America already has its vaccines against...

Although a vaccine has not yet been approved, nearly 40 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean have already secured the doses necessary for a first phase of immunization in the face of COVID-19, which until this Saturday has caused some 400,000 deaths in the region.

“We are supporting the region to participate in the COVAX mechanism, whose main objective is that all countries receive vaccines at the same time when they are ready, ”says Jarbas Barbosa, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO-WHO), underlining the history of inequality in access.

In the virtual forum “Covering stories about COVID-19 vaccines in a responsible and evidence-based way”, Barbosa mentioned as an example that “during the H1N1 influenza pandemic (2009-2010), in Latin America the poorest countries only they had access to vaccines 6 to 8 months after the rich countries ”, an inequality that the COVAX Mechanism wants to combat.

This access is a growing concern for Latin America and the Caribbean, which As of this Saturday, it registers 11.1 million infections (25% of the global total) and borders 400,000 deaths (almost 30%) from the coronavirus.

2,714 MILLION DOLLARS TO VACCINE 20% OF THE POPULATION

According to data from Doctors Without Borders (MSF), so far 13% of the world has purchased more than 50% by volume of the most promising candidate vaccines.

The United States has secured 600 million doses; the United Kingdom, 60 million; the European Union, 30 million, and Canada, 72 million, which for MSF raises concern about solidarity in the allocation of vaccines.

With this fear and fewer resources, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have been linked to the process, participating in clinical studies and managing their adherence to COVAX, coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and which seeks access with equity to an eventual vaccine.

Through COVAX, some 180 countries that have joined the mechanism are guaranteed initial doses to cover at least 3% of the population in the early stages of vaccine deployment, eventually reaching 20% ​​of their inhabitants, enough to protect those most at risk.

According to the WHO, at this moment there are three ways to obtain the vaccine: national access, with direct agreements with manufacturing laboratories (Argentina, Mexico and Brazil have taken this option), group -regional agreements for supply- and the global one, which is what COVAX represents.

Within COVAX, to which Mexico and Brazil, Latin America and the Caribbean have also joined, it currently registers about 30 countries or self-financed territories (that is, with the capacity to buy vaccines) and 10 eligible to receive support: Bolivia, Dominica, El Salvador, Grenada, Guyana Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

John Fitzsimmons, chief of the PAHO / WHO Revolving Fund Program, detailed in the forum that to vaccinate 20% of the population in the region it is estimated that 273 million doses will be needed (with a two-dose schedule at $ 10.55 / dose), which will imply a projected cost of $ 2,714,200,000.

201 REGISTERED CANDIDATES, WITH 10 MORE ADVANCED

The WHO currently registers 201 vaccine candidates: 156 in the preclinical stage, including two from Brazil, one from Argentina and one from Cuba, and 45 in human trials.

Of the latter, 10 are already in the final stretch (phase III), in which safety and efficacy are evaluated with tens of thousands of volunteers.

Four of the 10 most advanced vaccines are developed in China, while the others are from the American pharmaceutical companies Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), Novavax, Pfizer (working with the German BioNTech) and Moderna; to which the British AstraZeneca joins in collaboration with the University of Oxford.

Also on the list is one from Russia, which this week sent the WHO a request for accelerated registration and prequalification of its Sputnik V vaccine.

The trials have not been without difficulties. AstraZeneca and Janssen have already resumed testing after being briefly interrupted to investigate cases of volunteers who became ill.

With information from EFE

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