Proponents of a popular vaccine responded critically to an announcement by AstraZeneca on Thursday that the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant saw its profits double last year, even though it provided its non-profit coronavirus vaccine – which it promised to do during the pandemic, as defined by the company.
“Last year’s performance marked a significant step for AstraZeneca. Despite the significant impact of the pandemic, we delivered double-digit revenue growth to leverage improved profitability and cash generation,” said CEO Pascal Soriot in a statement about the company results in 2020. “The consistent achievements in progress, the accelerated performance of our businesses and the progress of the Covid-19 vaccine have demonstrated what we can achieve.”
The coronavirus vaccine that AstraZeneca developed with the University of Oxford is one of several that are being launched worldwide. Given the company’s promise not to profit from the vaccine during the pandemic and its commitment to “provide the non-profit vaccine in perpetuity to low and middle income countries”, CNBC explained on Thursday that “his current earnings do not include vaccine sales”.
Still, Nick Dearden, executive director of the UK defense group Global Justice Now, noted that countries have paid different fees for AstraZenca doses.
“AstraZeneca’s huge profits today show that the company can easily supply its Covid-19 vaccine at cost during the pandemic and beyond,” said Dearden. “But despite that promise, the question of why low-income countries like South Africa and Uganda are paying several times more per dose than the European Union has not yet been addressed. This is not the ‘fair access’ that AstraZeneca has been touting in its press releases. “
“This global inequality cannot continue,” he added. “If a booster shot is needed to deal with Covid-19 variants, will AstraZeneca commit to providing it for the same price to all countries, including as a condition for any sub-licensing agreements? Is it an outrage that countries with less resources are being charged more in the midst of a global health emergency. “
How Common dreams reported last month, while a Belgian minister revealed that EU members are paying $ 2.16 per dose for the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine, and the company had said it would limit the price to around $ 3 per dose, the vice South Africa’s director-general of health, Anban Pillay, confirmed that the country was quoted at $ 5.25 a dose by the vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India (SII).
“We have been informed that the SII has applied a tiered pricing system, and given that [South Africa] is a high-middle-income country, its price is $ 5.25, “said Pillay Business day at the time. “The explanation they gave us why other high-income countries have lower prices is that they invested in [research and development], hence the price discount. “
South Africa on Sunday suspended plans to start inoculating people with the doses of AstraZeneca in its possession after a limited trial pending peer review found that the vaccine “provides minimal protection against Covid-19 infection leading to moderation “of a more contagious variant of the virus in the country.
South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced on Wednesday that the country would begin distributing doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which “has proven effective against the 501Y.V2 variant” that was first identified in Africa of the South, but started to spread to other countries.
As for the million AstraZeneca injections that South Africa received from the SII – of which another 500,000 doses were purchased –Agence France-Presse reported that “South Africa is considering selling or exchanging these doses with countries facing the original coronavirus strain, the minister said, insisting that nothing would be wasted.”
Meanwhile, the Ugandan government said last week that it had ordered 18 million doses of the SII AstraZeneca vaccine, whose spokesman later said Reuters that “while the discussions are ongoing, there was no finalization of price or volumes” for the country, located in central-east Africa.
According Reuters:
The institute is providing doses of the vaccine to Brazil, Saudi Arabia and South Africa for $ 5.25 a dose.
The Ugandan government statement says that each person will receive two separate doses for 28 days, and Uganda is buying the vaccine from the manufacturer for $ 7 a dose.
After reporting that this fee generated a wave of criticism, a senior Ugandan health official defended the $ 7 price last week for a Swiss representative Health Policy Surveillance.
“You cannot compare prices directly between countries because there are many factors to consider. Prices should vary anyway,” said Alfred Driwale, manager of the Expanded National Immunization Program (UNEPI) at the Uganda Ministry of Health. “A country with a large population cannot be expected to pay the same price, the large country will certainly have greater bargaining power.”
The debates over AstraZeneca’s dose prices and growing profits come as world leaders continue to face pressure to renounce vaccine nationalism and focus on inoculating the world’s most vulnerable people, regardless of their country source.
Professor Mariana Mazzucato of University College London and Costa Rican economist Rebeca Grynspan wrote to Newsweek on Thursday that “the world will not get out of the pandemic without a people’s vaccine that can be produced quickly, at scale and made available to all people, in all countries, free of charge. But with national interests prevailing over global interests, bilateral business continues to undermine the purpose and progress of COVAX, which has ensured only enough doses to vaccinate 20% of the populations of the 92 participating low and middle income countries. “
COVAX is a global vaccination effort led by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the World Health Organization (WHO).
US President Joe Biden, who has chosen to engage with WHO and COVAX, “is in a unique position to meet the challenge of delivering People’s Vaccine and converting the lessons of the crisis to build a new transformative economy centered on prosperity. shared humanity “, argued Mazzucato and Grynspan. “This can be achieved by recognizing that ‘health is wealth’ – that we are as healthy as our neighbors and no one is protected until everyone is protected.”
THE Newsweek the opinion came hours before Biden announced the purchase of over 100 million doses of a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, as well as another 100 million doses of Moderna – which require two doses – potentially allowing the US to inoculate 300 million people up to the end of this summer.