Who
would be the first to get a Covid-19 vaccine? Probably people in the country
where the first effective vaccine is developed.
About
a dozen different vaccines are in various stages of testing worldwide,
including in Britain, China and the United States. This week, Dr Anthony Fauci,
the top US infectious disease expert, said he is cautiously optimistic there
will be a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the year or early 2021.
Several
wealthy countries have already ordered millions of doses of those experimental
vaccines.
Britain
and the US, for example, have invested in a vaccine candidate being developed
by Oxford University and produced by AstraZeneca. If it works, UK politicians
have said Britons will be vaccinated with it. The US expects to start
stockpiling it this fall and also has invested in other vaccine candidates.
Earlier
this month, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands signed an agreement with
AstraZeneca to guarantee the supply to the European Union of 300 million doses
of a possible coronavirus vaccine,
Groups
including the vaccine alliance GAVI are also working to buy doses for poor
countries and AstraZeneca has agreed to license its vaccine to India's Serum
Institute for the production of one billion doses. The World Health
Organisation is drafting guidelines for the ethical distribution of Covid-19
vaccines.
How
vaccines are distributed within a country will vary. Last week, US officials
said they were developing a tiered system for that. The system would likely
prioritise groups at greatest risk of severe complications from Covid-19 and
key workers.
