COVAX to revamp allocation system as smaller countries miss out on doses
pharmafile | September 27, 2021 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing |
COVAX is set to change its vaccine allocation methodology as it does not take into account a country’s vaccinated population, which has led to countries like the UK receiving a higher number of doses over countries in need.
Since January the WHO co-led programme has distributed vaccines proportionally among its members according to population size, but regardless of their vaccination coverage.
This led to the UK receiving half a million doses from COVAX supplies, despite a successful vaccination campaign, with countries such as Botswana, which hadn’t even started its vaccination drive, being assigned 20,000 doses from the same batch of millions of Pfizer mRNA vaccines.
Other countries that have been short changed by the COVAX system include Rwanda and Togo, who were each allotted about 100,000 doses, and Libya which only receiving around 55,000.
COVAX, which is also led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (Gavi), will now take into account a country’s vaccinated population as well as shots bought directly from drug makers.
The proposal will be discussed at the Gavi board meeting on Tuesday, and the change could be enacted in the fourth quarter of this year, an internal document has confirmed.
When asked why total vaccine coverage was not used earlier as a measure, Bruce Aylward, a senior WHO and COVAX official, told Reuters that the allocation terms could not be changed without the consent of COVAX’s more than 140 member countries, though he did not elaborate on the process of reaching consensus.
He added that hard data on vaccines’ efficacy, which strengthened the case for a change, was now available.
He said: “What’s becoming interesting now, only in the last couple of months, is the divergence between cases and deaths as a result of vaccination coverage.
“We are learning that the single best indicator of mortality risk is the level of whole coverage, not just COVAX coverage.”
Kat Jenkins
