Covax, what is it and what does it represent for Latin America?
The achievement of vaccines is an exemplary and historic success that allows us to give a glimmer of hope for the management of this pandemic. The COVAX platform, Global Access Fund for Covid-19 Vaccines, was created in April 2020 and represents one of the pillars in the collaboration for global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.
This initiative, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), which seeks to correct global inequalities in vaccination, has faced continuous delays. They promised to deliver 22 million doses to Latin America by the end of May, but has only distributed a quarter to date. It is co-directed by the WHO and the World Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), which since 2000 has experience in global vaccination directed at disadvantaged children. GAVI has among its promoters, apart from WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank and the Melinda and Bill Gates foundation.
The fundamental impulse of these alliances is born from the following precepts: 1. When a pandemic advances rapidly, no one will be safe unless everyone is safe 2. The strongest country is really as strong as the weakest country in vaccination due to to the recirculation of the variants. In other words, no one will win this race until we all win it or you can’t put out just part of the fire.
What does COVAX offer ?: 1. Vaccine doses for at least 20% of the countries population 2. A diversified and actively managed portfolio of vaccines 3. Deliver vaccines as soon as they are available 4. End the acute phase of the pandemic 4. Rebuild the economies of the countries involved.
Currently, 190 countries are part of this alliance. Apart from the richest donor countries, globally there are 90 financed countries and the rest are self-financed. Almost all of Latin America is self-financed.
Some countries in regions such as Latin America would only have access to COVAX vaccines in 2022, under favorable conditions. In this region we have 19 countries, of which 14 are self-financed and 5 are financed. It is worth mentioning that the latter countries are: Bolivia, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua. Why is Venezuela not on this last list?
For the classification of countries, gross national income (GNI) is used, which represents the value produced by the economy of a country in a given year. The requirement to be considered as an eligible country to be financed is to have a GNI of US $ 4,000 measured in 2018/2019 in the World Bank database. The fact is that Venezuela has not reported macroeconomic figures to multilateral organizations since 2014. The latest figure reported by Venezuela is a GNI per capita of US $ 13,080. It is alleged that the INB has collapsed by approximately 80%, which would place Venezuela in the group of low-income countries, and therefore, eligible for free vaccines.
The only country in the region that has not joined COVAX is Cuba, which plans to vaccinate its entire population with domestically produced vaccines. Additionally, Venezuela’s membership was at risk after it initially failed to make its second payment to COVAX, but did so on April 18, 2021. Haiti, with 11 million inhabitants, is the only country in the region that has not started their vaccination process, by rejecting their second-round assignment for fear of the side effects of the Astra Zeneca vaccine, as did Venezuela.
COVAX is working with seven different vaccine manufacturers. Of these, three have been approved for use by the WHO: AstraZeneca-Oxford, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Johnson & Johnson. The other vaccines, which manufacturers such as Novavax, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline are working on, have not received regulatory approval and are in various stages of development. China and Russia submitted an application to participate in the COVAX program, which has not yet been approved.
Venezuela is the country in South America that has administered the least doses of COVID-19 vaccines in relation to its population, two and a half months after the vaccination began. Our country has vaccination levels similar to Pakistan, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Uganda and Egypt, all with rates lower than one dose administered per 100 inhabitants. In the Latin American region, Venezuela is only equated with Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras as those countries with the mentioned rates.
Venezuela has received several shipments of vaccines against COVID-19, which accumulates a total of 930 thousand doses and 4% of the 10 million promised by Sputnik V. It is expected that the vaccines of the Covax mechanism will begin to be received between June and July, an alliance with which it agreed to purchase millions of doses of vaccines.
According to recent press publications, Venezuela will also participate in clinical trials of the Cuban vaccine called Abdala, in tribute to the poem by José Martí, and the Russian EpiVacCorona. Both vaccines must complete all the research phases in large international trials and have a proven effectiveness greater than 50%, as required by the WHO, before proceeding to mass immunization of the population.
We all need to help ensure that COVID-19 vaccines are not further delayed by some focal points of conflict. The Covax Framework of Values cautions that there should be “no tolerance for personal, financial or political conflicts of interest or corruption.” However, it can be difficult or chimerical to achieve compliance without independent monitoring and with good experience in the field of vaccinology.
@santiagobacci
Originally published at https://www-elnacional.com on May 07, 2021
