Is Pfizer’s Vaccine the Answer to Pakistan’s Covid-19 Problem?
With tropical heat, remote island communities, a dearth of ultra-cold freezers and a limited quantity available, many Asian countries and developing nations aren’t betting on Pfizer’s experimental vaccine solving their Covid-19 crisis any time soon.
The world cheered on Monday when Pfizer Inc. announced its shot, jointly developed with BioNTech SE, was more than 90 per cent effective based on initial trial results.
Yet health experts cautioned that the vaccine, should it be approved, was no silver bullet — not least because the genetic material it’s made from needs to be stored at temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius or below.
Such requirements pose a particularly daunting challenge for countries in Asia, as well as in places like Africa and Latin America, where intense heat is often compounded by poor infrastructure that will make it difficult to keep the “cold chain” intact during deliveries to rural areas and islands.
That is a problem for everyone in the world, given the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates about 70pc of people must be inoculated to end the pandemic, and Asia alone is home to more than 4.6 billion — or three-fifths of the global population.
Some Asian countries are prioritizing containing the novel coronavirus rather than looking to stockpile vaccines, while others are looking for alternatives to the messenger RNA technology used by Pfizer that requires such ultra-cold storage.
80pc of doses already called for
In addition, Pfizer can manufacture only a limited quantity of the vaccine next year — about 1.3 billion doses, according to a report by NPR . But more than 80pc of the supply is already spoken for by the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada and Japan.
This means that there is hardly anything left for the rest of the world, particularly poorer countries.
"What's left in that pie is not a lot," Rachel Silverman, at the nonprofit Center for Global Development in Washington, DC, told NPR .
"For most people in low- and middle-income countries, this vaccine is not likely to be available, at least, by the end of next year," according to Silverman.
“On the cold chain requirement of -70 degrees, that is a hefty requirement. We do not have such facilities,” Philippines’ Health Secretary Francisco Duque told Reuters.
“We will have to wait and see for now,” he added. “The technology Pfizer is using is new technology. We don’t have experience with that, so risks can be high.”
Pfizer told Reuters that it had developed detailed logistical plans and tools to support vaccine transport, storage and continuous temperature monitoring.
“We have also developed packaging and storage innovations to be fit for a range of locations where we believe vaccinations will take place,” it said.
'Vaccine is story for future'
Yet even wealthier nations like South Korea and Japan are managing expectations.
“Storage is going to be a big challenge for us,” said Fumie Sakamoto, infection control manager at St Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo.
“I’m not sure how well prepared our government is with regards to maintaining the cold chain. Hospitals in Japan usually do not have ultra-cold freezers, but I think it’s high time we started thinking about the logistics for the vaccine.”
Japan is among three countries in Asia Pacific that have announced supply deals for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. It has signed a deal for 120 million doses, while Australia has secured 10 million doses and China’s Fosun has secured 10 million doses for Hong Kong and Macau.
Japan’s PHC Corp, which supplies medical freezers, told Reuters that demand had shot up 150pc this year and that they were increasing production to meet demand.
Kwon Jun-wook, an official at South Korea’s Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), said it wanted to see how vaccination progressed in other countries first and would thoroughly review its supply chain.
The country had recently experienced the problems of cold storage when it had to discard about five million doses of flu vaccines because they were not stored at recommended temperatures.
A 2018 study commissioned by the agency found that only a quarter of 2,200 private clinics it surveyed had medical refrigerators, with 40pc using household refrigerators.
For some countries, it’s still very early days.
Indonesia, whose 273 million people are scattered over more than 17,000 islands, is considering a variety of vaccines, but the Pfizer one is not yet among them, said AirlanggaHartarto, who heads the country’s Covid-19 response team.
Vietnam, which successfully contained its outbreak through aggressive mass testing and strict border controls, said it would continue to focus on containment effort.
“The vaccine is a story for the future,” Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, told a government meeting on Friday.
“Demand is far higher than supply, and we have to pay large deposits to secure our position, which I see as very high risk and a waste of money and time.”
Pakistani experts say premature to celebrate Pfizer vaccine
According to a top government scientist from Pakistan, Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is not suitable for developing countries due to cold storage requirements.
Professor Attaur Rahman, head of the Task Force on Science and Technology, told Voice of America that it would be premature for Pakistan and other developing nations to celebrate Pfizer's announcement.
“The cold storage infrastructure and chains to take this from the airport, across cities and countries are missing in the developing world,” he told the publication. He added that patients would require two doses of the vaccine three weeks apart and a "low temperature carriage" makes it all the more difficult to carry out inoculation.
These sentiments were also echoed by Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan.
"It will be a major challenge for us to maintain the cold chain of the vaccine. Our cold chain system may not cater to the temperature so we will have to make arrangements to maintain the temperature during nationwide supplies,” the special assistant told Dawn.
DrGhazna Khalid, who is also a member of the task force on Covid-19, told Dawn that as the vaccine was being developed, a framework for cold storage was also being prepared.
“The vaccine becomes administrable in one-and-a-half hours but I believe people will be advised to come to the cold storage to get vaccinated. Unfortunately, our Expanded Program of Immunization is entirely in Islamabad; it should be developed in provinces as well,” she said. - Reuters
