Here is Biden’s billion-dollar plan to produce vaccines
Thinking about this pandemic and future ones is the goal of Biden's billionaire investment to expand vaccine production, but not everyone approves …
The vaccination campaign wanted by the President of the United States Joe Biden does not stop. The White House, in an effort to better respond to national and global needs, as well as future threats , announced that it plans to invest several billion dollars to expand vaccine manufacturing capacity, with the goal of producing at least one billion doses. the year by mid-2022.
THE USA VACCINATION PLAN
The news comes just before another move by which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to approve booster doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine for all adults later this week.
Currently, in the United States, the booster dose is only recommended for people over 65, but as the number of infections begins to rise again, leading experts, including Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser of the White House, have said that doses of recall for most people will be inevitable to avoid a rise in the virus in mid-winter.
WHO DOESN'T AGREE
The World Health Organization (WHO) and those who support equal access to Covid vaccines, however, continue to strongly oppose the administration of booster doses by rich countries, since this would be to the detriment of the poorest countries which, in many cases have not yet received even a first dose.
On Sunday, Health Policy Watch writes , WHO reiterated its call for a "moratorium on recalls until the end of 2021" so that even the most disadvantaged can have access to immunization.
WHAT THE WHO SAID
"No other vaccines should go to countries that have already vaccinated more than 40% of their population until Covax has the vaccines it needs to help other countries get there too," WHO said.
“No other booster should be given except to immunocompromised people. Most countries with high vaccination coverage continue to ignore our call for a global moratorium on recalls at the expense of health workers and vulnerable groups in low-income countries who are still waiting for the first dose. "
WHAT THEY REPLY FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
For their part, some White House officials, quoted by the site, replied that the expansion of production should help facilitate overseas supplies.
Jeffrey Zients, who coordinates the White House response to the coronavirus, said that along with the fight against Covid, the program will help prepare the United States and the world for a future pandemic, enabling production "within 6-9 months. from the identification of a future pathogen ".
WHAT THE MIDDLE AND LOW INCOME COUNTRIES ARE ASKING FOR
However, while Africa and other low- and middle-income regions have called for more investment on the continent and other low- and middle-income countries, the planned new US investments will go to production from domestic suppliers.
Biden has pledged to donate more than 1 billion doses of vaccines to other countries, but in reality only a fraction of those doses donated, or promised by other high-income countries, have so far been delivered.
HOW THE FUNDING WILL BE INVESTED
Investments would primarily focus on US vaccine manufacturers with experience in manufacturing mRNA vaccines.
First of all, the New York Times writes , the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) will issue a call for companies expert in vaccine manufacturing, asking for answers within the next 30 days.
The funding would be the result of the $ 1.9 trillion Covid assistance bill that Biden enacted in March.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/ecco-il-piano-miliardario-di-biden-per-produrre-vaccini/ on Thu, 18 Nov 2021 15:06:55 +0000.