The long road to a vaccine

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa during a meeting to assess the COVID-19 situation in the country on Tuesday had sought an update on plans to procure vaccines for Sri Lanka and appointed Advisor Lalith Weeratunga to coordinate on purchases. However, the current bottlenecks over the manufacturing, distribution and delivery of the vaccines around the world could mean that Sri Lanka may have to endure a long wait. 

At the moment Sri Lanka’s best option seems to be the World Health Organisation (WHO) program that aims to inoculate 20% of the local population. Unfortunately, WHO also estimates that as much as 60% of a country’s population would need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, with vulnerable groups such as senior citizens and frontline healthcare workers getting priority. WHO itself has also not procured any vaccines for its programme, despite many countries signing up for it. 

Match this with the limits on production and the overwhelming demand, especially from rich countries with deep pockets, and the likelihood of developing countries getting adequate numbers of vaccinations is likely to be in 2022. 

Pfizer expects to produce just 50 million shots for 2020, half its original goal, covering 25 million people with its two-dose regimen. Moderna has pledged $ 20 million inoculations this year, covering 10 million people. Manufacturing will accelerate in 2021, with combined production potentially topping 1.8 billion doses. Other companies’ trajectories are similar, but supplies won’t come fast enough for a world hungry for vaccines.   

There have also been early hiccups related to storing and delivering Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine that must be kept at Antarctic temperatures, as well as confusion over how many doses are actually in a vial. Allergic reactions in some UK and US health care workers have also emerged. And though trials involving tens of thousands have shown the new mRNA technology used by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna appears safe, there is still plenty of hesitancy among people over actually getting shots when their number is called.

So far, Russia has inoculated 200,000-plus people with its home-grown Sputnik-V shot, whose developers say it is 91.4% effective. The country has also signed production deals, including with India. In China, where one Sinovac Biotech candidate and two from China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) are in late-stage trials, health workers and border official have gotten shots, amid spending to boost production. Sinopharm’s vaccine is registered in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, with Egypt also getting deliveries, while Sinovac has deals to supply Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia.

So not only will Sri Lanka have to weight its options, it may also have to work hard to move ahead in the long line of countries awaiting vaccines. It is therefore critical that the Sri Lankan Government continue to enforce social distancing and other COVID-19 guidelines, particularly given the uptick of increased travel due to the festive season and when the decision to procure vaccinations is made that it be done in a transparency and inclusive manner. 

Even though many are looking forward to the end of 2020, it is unfortunately unlikely that COVID-19 will disappear next year. In fact international health authorities are predicting that the virus will remain for most of the upcoming decade with multiple vaccinations needed to protect populations. Therefore Sri Lanka’s vaccine plans will also have to be long term.