By Getrude Matayo
According to the world’s biggest vaccines manufacturer, Serum Institute of India, a leading Covid-19 vaccine candidate will cost Kenya 300 shillings per dose.
Serum Institute of India has been contracted to supply developing countries with the University of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as soon as it is prequalified this year or in 2021.
SII has been contracted by Gavi, the Geneva-based alliance that is leading a global initiative to secure Covid-19 vaccines for developing countries.
Gavi has already listed Kenya among the 92 countries that will benefit from its ongoing negotiations with different manufacturers. According to the biotechnology company, Novavax will soon begin the second phase of human testing for its Covid-19 vaccine.
According to a statement released by Novavax on August 7th, Phase 2b clinical trial will include a group of 2,665 healthy adults in South Africa as well as a group of 240 adults with HIV who are considered medically stable but whose immune responses may differ from individuals without HIV.
The World Health Organization says more than 160 candidate vaccines are in progress around the world, with 29 in human trials. Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, in a statement, said that too many times they have seen the most vulnerable countries left at the back of the queue when it comes to new treatments, new diagnostics, and new vaccines.
He added that this new collaboration is an important step in their efforts to prevent this from happening, helping to ensure they have the additional manufacturing capacity to begin producing doses for every country, not just the wealthy few. He said that they now need other vaccine manufacturers to step up and follow SII’s lead.
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SII will manufacture and deliver up to 100 million doses around the world under the Gavi Advance Market Commitment for the Covid-19 Vaccines (Covax) initiative, as early as the first half of 2021.
Science Magazine reported that HIV advocacy group have pushed for people with HIV to be included in clinical trials for Covid-19 vaccines, as companies like Moderna and Pfizer initially said they would exclude volunteers with the infection
SII CEO Adar Poonawalla, in a statement, said that to ensure maximum immunization coverage and contain the pandemic, it is important to make sure that the most remote and poorest countries of the world have access to affordable cure and preventive measures
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