A COVID-19 Vaccine: One for all, or all for one?

By Emma Carolan, CRA Justice Research Officer

A joint initiative between the World Health Organisation, GAVI Vaccine Alliance and The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, the COVAX Pillar consists of a large Portfolio of COVID-19 vaccine candidates. To secure supplies of any successful vaccines in this portfolio, developed nations contribute funds to ensure they have access to enough vaccines to inoculate up to 20% of their population in initial stages, but this also covers the cost of vaccine development and manufacturing, and an equal distribution of vaccines to developing nations, according to the World Health Organisation’s global allocation framework. This means that vaccines will be allocated to countries in proportion to their population size, enabling every country to begin by immunising their highest priority populations. By pooling the resources of the developed world, the COVAX Pillar ensures that developing nations are not denied access to the vaccine, with the aim of manufacturing up to 2 billion doses by the end of 2021. You can watch a video explaining the COVAX Pillar further here.

To date, Australia has committed $123.2 million to the COVAX Pillar to secure vaccines for Australians, thereby contributing to the reduction of vaccine prices for all countries, as well as contributing $80 million to cater for high-risk populations in developing countries. Furthermore, Australia has committed $23.2 million in the 2020-21 Federal Budget, and an additional $500 million over 3 years, to ensure that countries of the Pacific and Timor-Leste can achieve full immunisation coverage as well as contributing to this goal for Southeast Asia.

However, challenges remain. There will be huge logistical challenges for rolling out vaccination programs in developing nations, including if the vaccines require stringent cold-chain adherence, such as the current forerunner from Pfizer. COVAX have currently raised US$2 billion, but need another $5 billion to reach targets for 2021. Promising vaccine developers Pfizer and Moderna have not yet brokered agreements with COVAX to supply vaccines, although Pfizer is currently in negotiations. However, it remains to be seen how many doses would be available for the rest of the world, given that most of the initial supply has already been reserved through private agreements with developed nations. Numerous other independent partnerships have been forged by developed nations to secure vaccines outside of the COVAX Pillar, essentially blocking developing nations from access to a vaccine if one of these were to prove successful.

Pope Francis has urged universal access to a COVID-19 vaccine, and despite the good work of the COVAX Pillar, if vaccines outside of their portfolio prove safe and effective, developing nations are at risk of missing out. You can see Pope Francis’ ever-important message here.