Antony Blinken Says ‘We’re Understaffed’ on Global Vaccine

Foreign Minister Antony Blinken on Wednesday urged wealthy countries, pharmaceutical companies and others to “take steps” to deliver the coronavirus vaccine to parts of the world that don’t get much dose.

“How come we have vaccination rates on average somewhere around 60 percent in the United States and Europe? In Africa it’s below 14 percent,” he said. DealBook Online Summit. “It’s not just wrong. It’s a huge problem.”

He blamed it, at least in part, on pharmaceutical companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer, which produce coronavirus vaccines. “They’ve worked miracles,” said Mr Blinken. “When it comes to distribution, all the different actors involved – governments, companies, international organizations – we fell short of target.”

It arrived the same day as Mr. Blinken’s statement. USA announced the deal With Johnson & Johnson to distribute more doses of vaccine to low-income countries, including many countries in Africa. As part of this effort, Mr Blinken announced the release of a new tracker that makes it easy to see where vaccine doses are distributed.

Mr Blinken also said vaccine distribution could benefit if pharmaceutical companies had shared their intellectual property, allowing the vaccine to be produced in other parts of the world. This week, The New York Times reported Moderna and the US government are in a dispute over who should own the patent underlying its vaccine, which stems from a four-year partnership between the company and the National Institutes of Health. “I think it’s critical that we do this next time,” said Mr Blinken. “We actually need to move from lender to owner so countries around the world will have the capacity to produce what is needed on a regional basis.”

On Tuesday, Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, also Speaking at the DealBook Online Summit, said it was unfair to blame his company for the unequal distribution of the vaccine. Bourla said Pfizer makes doses of the vaccine available to any country that requests it, but rich countries are quicker to order.

Still, Mr. Bourla said he and Pfizer had learned lessons from the distribution of the vaccine. For the company’s antiviral pill to treat Covid-19 called Paxlovid, Pfizer is working on a first-come, first-served-only system, said Mr. Bourla, adding that the company has not completed its distribution strategy.