Switzerland has agreed to swap its place in Moderna's anti-Covid vaccine queue, allowing the international Covax redistribution system to have access by the end of the year to one million doses, a reported Wednesday the Vaccine Alliance. The Alpine country becomes the first to respond to the call of the Covax system to try to reduce vaccine inequality between rich and poor countries more quickly, underlined the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi). "
At Gavi's initiative, Switzerland and Gavi have respectively agreed with Moderna to exchange the delivery of doses on the basis of their supply contract with the manufacturer,
" said a statement from Gavi.
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The Covax system - which is struggling to find the vaccine doses needed to rapidly spike the vaccination rate in low-income countries - will thus have the messenger RNA vaccine from the American manufacturer in the last quarter of 2021, while the Switzerland will have its doses later next year, the statement said.
“
I warmly welcome this important commitment from Switzerland, which sets an example of a simple way to prioritize procurement for Covax participants
,” said Seth Berkley, who heads Gavi.
The Alliance is in charge of Covax's supply contracts for anti-Covid vaccines.
Significant delay on Gavi's objectives
However, the rush of the rich countries for the available doses, and also the ban for many months by India to export the hundreds of millions of doses of AstraZeneca vaccine initially intended for Covax, have caused the program to take a huge delay. on its initial goals.
Gavi and the other partners of Covax (WHO, Unicef and Cepi) have also launched appeals for donations of doses but this is a method that makes planning more difficult for recipients: we do not know when the donations are made. nor their volume and doses sometimes close to their expiration date.
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The system inaugurated by Switzerland avoids these obstacles and makes it possible to prepare vaccination campaigns more calmly.
This announcement comes a week before a ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO), where the temporary lifting of patents on these vaccines must be discussed, without any real hope of success, in order, according to its supporters, to increase production. of serums around the world.
Switzerland, where the pharmaceutical industry weighs heavily on the economy, is firmly opposed to this lifting and has been sharply criticized by NGOs and countries that are in its favor.
