May 2021 – Duke Global Health Innovation Center

28May 2021 by Melissa Slogan

IS VACCINE TOURISM ETHICAL?

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WEEKLY COVID VACCINE RESEARCH UPDATE Friday, May 28, 2021 High-income country confirmed dose total: 5.9 billion Upper-middle-income country total: 1.8 billion Lower-middle-income country total: 961 million Low-income country total: 270 million COVAX total: 2.4 billion Total worldwide confirmed purchases of Covid-19 vaccines: 11.3 billion doses INSIGHTS Is vaccine tourism ethical? Author: Blen Biru According to Our World in Data, 1.78B people are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 across the world. About 16% of the fully vaccinated (289M people) live in the US, which has a very high rate of vaccination, especially compared to neighboring countries in Latin America. The abundance of available vaccines in the US has attracted foreign travelers from South America and other parts of the world looking to get vaccinated, referred to as vaccine tourism. An estimated 70,000 people from…

25May 2021 by Melissa Slogan

THE G20 PLEDGE DRIVE

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WEEKLY COVID VACCINE RESEARCH UPDATE Tuesday, May 25, 2021 High-income country confirmed dose total: 5.93 billion Upper-middle-income country total: 1.82 billion Lower-middle-income country total: 959.6 million Low-income country total: 270.2 million COVAX total: 1.96 billion Total worldwide confirmed purchases of Covid-19 vaccines: 10.9 billion doses INSIGHTS The G20 Pledge Drive Author: Andrea Talor The G20 met today in Rome for a Global Health Summit and vaccine equity was at the top of the agenda. According to Reuters, the resulting “Rome Declaration” calls for voluntary licensing and technology transfers to increase production of Covid-19 vaccines globally. The declaration also reportedly mentioned the important role of the ACT-Accelerator (of which COVAX is one pillar) but did not commit to funding it (the ACT-Accelerator still needs $19 billion to reach its goal). A flurry pledges were made…

17May 2021 by kmitch@duke.edu

Open Letter to the Biden Administration and US Congress Calling for Urgent High-Level US Leadership to Address Escalating Global COVID-19 Vaccine Crisis

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The unprecedented wave of COVID-19 now engulfing India, Brazil, and other nations—and the extreme and widening global inequities in access to vaccines—test our collective conscience and threaten our national security. Worsening mass illness and deaths, a preventable humanitarian catastrophe, are destabilizing, and projected to increase. Urgent action is required to stem global circulation of the virus and the consequent inevitable emergence of new variants, which threaten to undermine Americans’ hard-fought but fragile vaccine immunity, putting lives and economic recovery at risk. President Biden has promised to restore American leadership abroad. The world is now in great need of high-level engagement that up to now has been conspicuously absent—to mitigate death and suffering in the short term, chart a sustained exit from the COVID-19 pandemic in the medium term, and insure…

15May 2021 by Melissa Slogan

WHAT THE MANUFACTURING LANDSCAPE CAN TELL US NOW

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WEEKLY COVID VACCINE RESEARCH UPDATE Saturday, May 15, 2021 INSIGHTS What the manufacturing landscape can tell us now Author: Andrea Taylor Manufacturing projections for Covid-19 vaccines seem to shift on a near-weekly basis. We are not even halfway into 2021 and already we have seen adjustments, both up and down, across all vaccine makers. 2021 projections differ by vaccine platform Overall, we see 2021 projections increasing for mRNA vaccines Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, while decreasing for viral vector vaccines Oxford-AstraZeneca and Janssen (J&J). AstraZeneca, in particular, has faced significant manufacturing issues throughout its global production network. In addition to the well-covered constraints slowing down manufacturing in Europe and the Serum Institute of India, partners in Mexico, Brazil, and elsewhere have struggled to get production started or sustained. Janssen’s vaccine has also experienced setbacks, including the temporary…

07May 2021 by Melissa Slogan

CAN THE TRIPS WAIVER SAVE THE WORLD?

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WEEKLY COVID VACCINE RESEARCH UPDATE Friday, May 7, 2021 High-income country confirmed dose total: 4.9 billion Upper-middle-income country total: 1.5 billion Lower-middle-income country total: 718 million Low-income country total: 270 million COVAX total: 1.62 billion Total worldwide confirmed purchases of Covid-19 vaccines: 9.1 billion doses INSIGHTS Can the TRIPS waiver save the world? Author: Andrea Taylor The US threw its weight into the ring on the side of the TRIPS waiver this week, surprising many. There is still a long road ahead for the waiver, which much be agreed through discussion and consensus. With vocal opponents (including Germany), this is unlikely to happen before December. But if it does go through and intellectual property (IP) protections are waived, will it make a difference? The short answer is maybe, but not this year. The TRIPS waiver…

03May 2021 by Melissa Slogan

THREE REFLECTIONS FROM A WILD WEEK

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WEEKLY COVID VACCINE RESEARCH UPDATE Monday, May 3, 2021 High-income country confirmed dose total: 4.9 billion Upper-middle-income country total: 1.5 billion Lower-middle-income country total: 718 million Low-income country total: 270 million COVAX total: 1.62 billion Total worldwide confirmed purchases of Covid-19 vaccines: 9.1 billion doses INSIGHTS Can the TRIPS waiver save the world? Author: Andrea Taylor The US threw its weight into the ring on the side of the TRIPS waiver this week, surprising many. There is still a long road ahead for the waiver, which much be agreed through discussion and consensus. With vocal opponents (including Germany), this is unlikely to happen before December. But if it does go through and intellectual property (IP) protections are waived, will it make a difference? The short answer is maybe, but not this year. The TRIPS waiver…