How Can a Safe and Effective COVID‑19 Vaccine be Allocated?

A number of serious challenges exist for universal vaccination campaigns, yet manufacturers remain undeterred. AstraZeneca intends to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University with the aim of producing “30 million doses of the vaccine for the UK market by September, with expectations of 100 million doses by the end of the year” Thus, AstraZeneca’s total commitment is 2 billion doses, including 1 billion doses intended mainly for low-and middle-income countries.

Prepurchase agreements from governments in developed countries have facilitated accelerated development–similar plans for manufacturing and stockpiling a COVID-19 vaccine exist among other pharmaceutical companies. Although this is an encouraging development, enormous logistical and allocation challenges remain in place. In this article, Laurence S. J. Roope and colleagues outline these challenges and propose an innovative framework to address them. Read the full article here.