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Covid vaccine doses in Stuttgart
Photo: Marijan Murat / dpa
The corona pandemic is far from over. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than a million people worldwide are currently infected with Covid-19 every day.
Nevertheless: "The vaccine supply currently exceeds demand," says Thomas Cueni, Director General of the pharmaceutical association IFPMA in Geneva.
Since the start of production towards the end of 2020, around 13.7 billion vaccine doses have been manufactured and around eleven billion have been administered.
A total of almost eight billion vaccine doses could be produced this year, said Cueni.
Still, not all people who needed it would be vaccinated.
This is not due to the lack of vaccine doses - as was the case until late summer 2021 - but to the fact that the vaccination programs in some countries have not fully started.
In the event of possible new pandemics, this would have to be better organized, according to Cueni.
Industry insists on patent protection
Cueni and the bosses of the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Roche Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly have criticized ongoing calls to suspend patents on Covid-19 vaccines or drugs.
The investments that led to the rapid development of vaccines and medicines were only possible over the years thanks to patent protection.
Pfizer, together with the Mainz-based company Biontech, launched the world's first corona vaccine in December 2020.
Pfizer boss Albert Bourla hopes to have a new corona vaccine by autumn that is equally effective against all virus variants.
The aim is also to develop a vaccine that, like influenza, protects against severe disease progression and infection for a year.
ktz/dpa