Race for COVID-19 Vaccine Intensifies

By: Juan Cooper / Noticias Telemundo Investiga

With more than 30 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide, almost a million deaths, a recession that will contract the global economy this year by 5.2%, according to the World Bank (WB) and millions of unemployed workers and companies bankrupt, the hope of getting back to normal is in one vaccine or, rather, several.

None of the companies that are competing has the capacity alone to produce the billions of doses necessary to reach all corners of the planet, and close this cycle of crisis and desolation left by the coronavirus pandemic.

For this reason,

.

Noticias Telemundo Investiga has analyzed all the public information available to make an estimate of how, where and how much money is being invested in saving the world from the coronavirus.

It remains to be seen if, in fact, Robert Redfield is right and the solution is much simpler and cheaper than the million-dollar investments of dozens of governments, the thousands of laboratory tests with different technologies and the effort of companies to recruit volunteers to help them. allow the development of a safe vaccine.

Because, according to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, in English), more than a vaccine, what the world needs are masks.

Even so, the world's richest countries have gone out to buy millions of doses of vaccines that are still in development in advance, spending exorbitant amounts of money to pharmaceutical companies without being sure that their vaccines will be successful.

These are the countries that have ordered doses of the vaccine.Noticias Telemundo

The country that has spent the most money on the vaccine is the

and it is also the country that has secured the highest number of doses for its citizens.

Through Operation Warp Speed, the Trump Administration approved

to accelerate the development and manufacture of six vaccines from different companies.

Those contracts include orders for 800 million doses.

The member countries of the

have financed several candidates to develop the vaccine, ensuring a total of 400 million doses.

It is not yet known how they will be distributed among European countries.

Britain, so far, has 180 million doses insured.

, for its part, has secured 240 million.

In

, Brazil acquired 100 million doses from AstraZeneca in advance and Mexico will receive 32 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine created by the Gamaleya Institute in Moscow and partially approved for use by the Russian government, while completing the last phase clinic.

China

has three large companies in the competition and one of them, Sinopharm, which belongs to the state, is in clinical phase 3 and claims to be able to produce 300 million doses by January 2021.

The Serum Institute of

has signed contracts with AstraZeneca and Novavax to produce hundreds of millions of doses for the domestic market and also to supply some countries in Asia.

These are the competitors to save the world from COVID-19

To date, the world has invested around

in the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, a value similar to the gross domestic product (GDP) of countries like Honduras or Trinidad and Tobago.

The United States chose the

biotechnology company

, the union of

with the German

, the

vaccine

with the

,

,

, and the alliance of

with

, to be financed on a large scale by

, whose resources come from the CARES Act, the economic rescue law for the coronavirus.

Graph showing millions of dollars invested in vaccines in the United States.Noticias Telemundo

These vaccines have also had the support of countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany and France, and international organizations such as the Coalition for Innovations in Epidemic Preparedness CEPI, founded under the leadership of Bill Gates during the conference in Davos, Switzerland, in 2017.

Graph showing millions of dollars invested in vaccines in the United States.Noticias Telemundo

Some of these pharmaceutical companies such as Novavax, Moderna and Sanofi have raised hundreds of millions of dollars through the issuance of shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The value of some of them has multiplied since the start of the pandemic.

The six vaccines supported by the Trump administration will have begun their final

.

Johnson & Johnson will conduct this phase 3 trial of its vaccine simultaneously in the US, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Argentina.

Millions of dollars invested in other vaccines.Noticias Telemundo

The global objective of finding this vaccine has allowed the

that can sometimes become competitors.

This is the case of the French Sanofi, which is developing a vaccine with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and another with the American Translate Bio.

Another interesting union was that of AstraZeneca with the University of Oxford.

In March the British university announced that it was working on developing a vaccine, and would need a partner who would commit to producing and marketing the vaccine at low cost.

AstraZeneca signed the deal.

For this reason, AstraZeneca is the company that has committed more millions of doses in the world.

The United States, Brazil, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom and the European Union are some of the buyers of this vaccine, and according to these negotiations, it will have an approximate value of

.

COVID-19 vaccine prices - Telemundo News

To date,

will be that of the Chinese state company Sinopharm, which is already in its last phase of development.

The government of that country assured that the two doses of its vaccine will have an approximate value of $ 145.

This is the technology used by vaccines in development

Although prices for most vaccines will range from $ 10 to $ 20 per dose, Moderna announced that theirs will cost about $ 35 due to the technology they are using.

Types of COVID-19 vaccine - Telemundo News

Moderna's technology is based on the messenger RNA molecule.

When manipulated, it generates an immune reaction once it enters the patient's cells.

This

that a vaccine of this type has been produced.

Pfizer, together with Germany's BioNTech, is also developing its messenger RNA-based vaccine, which is currently in the final phase of clinical trials with 30,000 volunteers in the United States, Brazil, Germany and Argentina.

Types of COVID-19 vaccine - Telemundo News

The viral vector-based technology uses a virus to carry protein S, which generates the immune reaction in patients.

In the case of AstraZeneca's vaccine with the University of Oxford, they are using

to prevent pre-existing immunity in humans and damage the effect of the vaccine.

If approved, this would probably be the most widely used vaccine in the world because it would be the

.

Types of COVID-19 vaccines - Telemundo News

The

are less common in experienced for COVID-19, however, the US company Novavax is one of the strongest candidates to win approval before the end of the

year.

Novavax signed an agreement with the Serum Institute of India to produce one billion doses by mid-2021 specifically for low-income countries.