The figures can make you dizzy: 60 million doses of a potential vaccine guaranteed by GSK and Sanofi in the United Kingdom, 400 million by AstraZeneca in the European Union or 100 million (maybe even 600) by Pfizer in the States United against 1.95 billion. Since the search for a vaccine against Covid-19 began, and even more since certain projects entered phase 3 – phase during which clinical trials are carried out on more than 10,000 people – the agreements between States and pharmaceutical laboratories are multiplying.
This policy may appear to go against the grain of what was pleaded by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres. In early June, he declared: “A vaccine against Covid-19 must be seen as a global public good, a vaccine for the people.” According to Frédéric Bizard, health economist, it would rather be seen as a remedy against the economic hemorrhage suffered by states. “The countries which will be the first stabilized will take a formidable head start on the economic plan” he remarks.
A cost-benefit logic
Indeed, while at the present time there are almost only uncertainties, one of the only evidence is that an effective vaccine would allow normalization of economic and social activity. “States therefore reason with a cost-benefit logic”, assures Frédéric Bizard. Understand: the cost of several tens or even hundreds of millions of doses of a potential vaccine, even if it may seem astronomical, is in reality ridiculous compared to the benefit that a stabilization of the situation would guarantee.
At present, the economist estimates the cost of the health crisis in France at more than 250 billion. The State has detailed its vaccination strategy in a report dating from July 9 but made public on the 24th. The Covid-19 Vaccine Committee chaired by Marie-Paule Kieny was also created on this occasion. But above all, this report says who should be vaccinated as a priority if one or more vaccines prove their effectiveness. For the moment, there is no vaccine and Frédéric Bizard distinguishes several tactics used by the States to obtain one.
The first is to invest upstream in research to optimize the chances of having an effective vaccine candidate. The second, to invest in “predoses”, that is to say to buy in advance doses of vaccines “hypothetical”, “virtual”. The third is to do both. What the United States, China and also Europe are doing.
The economist notes, however, that these three powers do not have the same approach. The Chinese make sure to control everything by relying mainly on their own research and their own production. This does not prevent them from investing in other vaccine candidates outside of China. The United States has a strategy that it describes as more “aggressive, nationalist and protectionist” because they condition their investments by a local production and the reservation of the first doses to their citizens.
A “vaccine Airbus”
Europe employs a strategy deemed more “universalist”: without conditioning the destination of its first doses, it invests (with its means) in research and in predoses. A strategy induced by the fact that several States which do not have the means of China or the United States compose it, but which is to be perfected for Frédéric Bizard.
He pleads for the creation of a “Airbus vaccine“which would make it possible to make the most of the capacities of each European state. France would be” a major stimulus “thanks to” its exceptional resources in terms of know-how in the field of research. “Once the health crisis is over , such a project could see the light of day. Meanwhile, the vaccine race continues.
Via LaDepeche
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