The cost is going to be a huge factor for countries like India which has a population of 1.4 billion people. Realizing the needed immunity will require two shots, the first being a half dose, which means there are actually 2 billion doses available. In narrowing that to the number of people receiving complete immunity with two doses that brings the number of immune people to 2 billion in 2021. One billion in half doses to 2 billion people and the remaining full doses are the full dose to two billion people.
It is most admirable these successful companies will seek to keep the cost per dose as low as possible. "Moderna" has estimated the cost of the vaccine in a range of less than $40.00.
The global community needs for all companies to produce as much as possible to their best outcomes, as well realizing the population of the world is nearing 8 billion and then there are the pregnancies. The need for these vaccines will be ongoing for some time. The companies' compassion and dedication to the best outcome of all people and ending the existence of SARS-CoV-2 can't be stated with high enough praise.
November 23, 2020
Hopes of an effective vaccine (click here) against coronavirus becoming available rose again on Monday with AstraZeneca and Oxford University claiming success with their product, becoming the third team to do so.
The head of AstraZeneca in France, Olivier Nataf, answered questions from AFP in an interview, saying that the data were very encouraging.
The 70 percent rate is the result of a combined analysis.
Using a regimen of first injecting half a dose of the vaccine and then a full dose a month later the effectiveness was 90 percent.
Another system, of one full dose first and another a month later the effectiveness is 62 percent.
This is an interesting lesson: the half-dose plus one dose scheme can become something that we follow, there is an opportunity for availability for the population, where it would take fewer doses to vaccinate more people.
The second point to remember is that there is 100 percent protection against the occurrence of severe forms of illness and hospitalisations in participants who received the vaccine. And the last point is the confirmation of safety: no serious side effects have been reported, the vaccine is well tolerated in both dosing regimens.
Finally, there is greater simplicity in storage, transport, handling, under normal refrigeration conditions of 2 to 8 degrees. This is a very interesting element from the public health standpoint.
We will be producing three billion doses worldwide in 2021...
