By Francesco Guarascio
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Pfizer and BioNtech are poised to surpass AstraZeneca to become the top suppliers of Covid-19 vaccines to the global Covax program in early 2022, a shift that illustrates the growing importance of their vaccine for more countries. poor.
The expected change comes with headaches for recipient countries that lack cold storage equipment for Pfizer’s vaccine and amid risks of a shortage of the syringes needed to administer it.
Currently, AstraZeneca is the most widely distributed vaccine by Covax, according to data from Gavi, the vaccine alliance that co-administers the program with the World Health Organization (WHO).
So far, the program has delivered more than 600 million vaccines to nearly 150 countries, of which more than 220 million are from AstraZeneca and about 160 million are from Pfizer.
But in the first quarter of next year, Pfizer should move ahead, according to figures from Gavi and WHO on doses attributed by Covax to future supplies.
By the end of March, another 150 million Pfizer vaccines are expected to be distributed by Covax, a WHO document showed.
A Gavi spokesman confirmed that Pfizer is well ahead in terms of “allocated” doses, as around 470 million of them have been delivered or are being prepared for deliveries against AstraZeneca’s 350 million.
Pfizer is the first supplier of Covid-19 vaccines in the European Union, the United States and Japan.
It has bilateral agreements for more than 6 billion doses, making it the largest supplier of Covid-19 vaccines by far, according to data from the United Nations International Emergency Fund for Children (Unicef).
But AstraZeneca is seen as a crucial supplier to less-developed countries because its vaccine is cheaper and easier to deliver.
Covax bet heavily on AstraZeneca at the start of the pandemic, but supply problems and export restrictions from India, a major producer, have gradually reduced its dependence on the Anglo-Swedish immunizer.
As the program struggled to obtain doses directly from vaccine manufacturers amid the global rush for immunization, donations from rich countries became more important, making Pfizer the main supplier of Covax. The US is mainly donating pharmaceutical vaccines to the program.
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