Celebrations (and questions) greet US vaccine donation plan

CAPE TOWN, South Africa  — Health officials and experts greeted U.S. plans to donate 500 million more COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries with both celebration and hesitation Thursday, amid questions over whether the effort would match the scale and urgency required to help poor regions desperate for doses right now.

With inequities in vaccine supplies around the world becoming alarmingly pronounced in recent months — vaccination campaigns in several richer countries have surged ahead while ones in many poorer nations have barely begun — some expressed hope that the pledge would encourage more such promises to fill a gaping need. Others stressed that the doses needed to roll out quickly.

The first 200 million doses will start to arrive in countries in August, the White House and manufacturer Pfizer said, with the rest following in the first half of 2022.

“Saving lives requires shots in arms now. Not at the end of 2021, not in 2022, but now,” said Kate Elder, senior vaccines policy advisor to the Doctors Without Borders organization. She added the donated vaccines “better come in sufficient volumes and urgently.”

The recent staggering surge in cases in India was a searing reminder of how the pandemic can still spiral out of control without vaccines — and health officials say countries in south and southeast Asia, Africa and elsewhere are desperate for shots now.

Some also noted that the Biden administration’s decision to donate Pfizer vaccines meant it was doubtful that the doses would reach the poorest of the poor: Because those vaccines need to be stored in ultra-cold conditions, many low-income countries with limited infrastructure likely won’t be able to take them to their most remote areas.

Those concerns were raised by health experts in Asia, and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would advise its countries to use Pfizer in their major cities.

Still, the Biden administration’s promise was “clearly a cause for celebration,” said Dr. John Nkengasong, the director of the Africa CDC, particularly at a time when virus infections are aggressively increasing on the continent of 1.3 billion people, and there are still countries that haven’t administered a single dose.

“Absolutely, it’s going to be a big help,” Nkengasong said, although he added he was eager to understand the exact timeline for the shots hopefully heading to his continent.

The donation of the Pfizer shots is crucial because the global disparity in vaccination has become a multidimensional threat: a human catastrophe, a $5 trillion economic loss for advanced economies, and a contributor to the generation of mutant viruses, said Jerome Kim, the head of the International Vaccine Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to making vaccines available to developing countries.