Great success in vaccine development, but inequity has to be addressed, says expert

Prasad made the remarks while addressing a virtual media conference organised by the Biotechnology Innovation Organisation (BIO), DCVMN, and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA).

Responding to a question from The Indian Express on booster doses in India, Prasad said the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation was reviewing data on booster doses. “For paediatric vaccinations, we need to let them take their time to review datasets so that they can come up with their recommendations, specially for a large country like India,” he said.

On the emergence of the Omicron variant of the infection, he said, “We will have to wait and check the different data sets on efficacy of vaccines with two doses given in the early days, or then with a booster dose… for product developers like us, we also have to think about developing a new variant-specific vaccine or then check whether an existing vaccine with a booster dose helps…”

He also said that several companies in the DCVMN network were working on mRNA vaccines. The World Health Organisation (WHO), which is spearheading this effort, has called for participation from several companies. “There are also companies looking at polyvalent vaccines but for that, questions like whether a vaccine developed against Alpha variant is also protective against Delta and other variants have to be addressed,” said Prasad.

“It is an excellent opportunity for scaling up manufacturing in Africa. There are mRNA vaccines under development, and at Bharat Biotech we are actively thinking of setting up a manufacturing facility in Africa,” he said.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, independent data was released that confirms production of Covid-19 vaccines was scaled up to 11.2 billion doses in just one year. The analysis by Airfinity — a health data firm that provides global health intelligence and analytics — has shown that, by the end of March 2022, G7 and EU countries are projected to have 1.4 billion surplus vaccines, even after administering boosters.
As much as 55.3% of the world population has received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine by now, while China, EU, India and the US are set to be the biggest vaccine producers in 2021, according to the data.

Dose sharing is gaining momentum to reach those who have not yet been vaccinated, and COVAX is ramping up fast to ensure doses are distributed equitably around the world. Today, more than 700 million doses have been shipped by COVAX to 144 countries; and nearly 1 billion doses ordered.

The manufacturing scale up of Covid-19 vaccines that had been developed in record time required building new production lines, which are able to consistently produce millions of doses to the highest quality standards.

Of these deals, 229 include various forms of voluntary collaboration that rely on technology transfer, sharing of know-how about the processes and the technologies used to make the vaccines, as well as training specialist personnel to ensure quality standards, said Thomas Cueni, director general, International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA).

The historic manufacturing scale-up, however, is overshadowed by a shared concern that Covid-19 vaccines are not reaching all who need them. “Vaccine inequity has to be addressed on a war footing. Yes, there has been great success in vaccine manufacturing and development, but what is the use if it does not reach people,” Prasad said.