The world media has mostly had it’s eyes on two vaccines currently with at least 1 billion orders each, and that is the Gam-COVID-Vac or Sputnik V, and the Tozinameran or the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. While initially there was negative criticism surrounding the Sputnik V vaccine, it led to the Streisand effect, and despite protest from regulators and the international scientific community, current clinical trials on 40,000 volunteers are showing that while the vaccine was rushed and criticized, the criticism did not stop it from being effective. In addition to this, the Sputnik vaccine goes for $10 a dose, compared to $19.50 a dose for the Pfizer vaccine.
As it would take two doses of the vaccine, taken several weeks apart from each other, in order to properly vaccinate a person, the price comparison between the two vaccines is $20 and $39, respectively. So far, for the Sputnik V vaccine, there have been 1.2 billion orders, across 50 countries, with the bulk of these doses being ordered by India, China, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Hungary and Nepal. Despite skepticism expressed in Western media outlets that was shot down by Russia as a “smear campaign intended to steal customers on the international vaccine market”, there has been a number of prominent figures in academia who have come forward to praise the vaccine, including Balram Bhargava, director of the Indian Council of Medical Research, who praised Russia’s success in developing a working COVID-19 vaccine so quickly, as well as Dr. Stephen Griffin, an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Leeds, which suggested the design of the Sputnik V vaccine as well as it’s method of delivery were ingenious, giving a wider array of options for both targeting various ethnicities and age groups as well as for storage of the vaccine.
Stephan Evans, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine suggested the data associated with the vaccine gave indications that it would be reasonably effective. Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading, in an interview for CBC News also forecasted the effectiveness of the vaccine, despite it’s initial fast track development causing a stir in the international health community and Western media outlets.
Where the Sputnik 5 vaccine is infused with a disabled Adenovirus or cold virus, the Pfizer vaccine also known as Tozinameran consists of an encoded mRNA version of the spike protein in SARS-CoV-2, also delivered through intramuscular injection as with the Pfizer vaccine. Both are designed to trigger an immune response and fight the COVID-19 virus when it enters the body of those who are vaccinated. Similarly to the Sputnik V vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine was approved on a fast track, emergency use basis, there are 1.3 billion advance orders, and it had not entered Phrase 3 clinical trials yet when it was approved. In China, the Pfizer vaccine will be distributed in a partnership with Fosan, who funded the vaccine with $135 million in exchange for 1.58 million shares in BioNTech on March 17, 2020, that was partnered with Pfizer in developing the vaccine, even before the European Commission and European Investment Bank decided to step in and procure funding for this particular vaccine in mid 2020 with an investment of 100 million Euros or the German government with a 375 million Euro investment in September 2020.
Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla declined funding assistance from the US government’s Operation Warp Speed due to concerns regarding bureaucracy and restrictions and oversight on spending. The problem with mRNA vaccines however is going to be in logistics, as the vaccine requires to be cooled in -70 C until hours before usage. The Pfizer vaccine so far has a 90 percent efficacy in preventing infection from COVID-19 within 7 days of the administration of the first dose. So far there are 300 million doses scheduled to be delivered to the European Union, 120 million doses to Japan, 100 million doses to the United States, 40 million doses to the United Kingdom, 20 million doses to Canada and 10 million doses to Hong Kong and Macau.
There are several other vaccines being developed and funded, and part of the US government’s program Operation Warp Speed are the following:
- Johnson and Johnson / Janssen Pharmaceutical with $1 billion in funding
- AstraZeneca-University of Oxford with $1.2 billion in funding
- Moderna with $1.53 billion in funding
- Novavax with $1.3 billion in funding
- Merck and IAVI with $38 million in funding
- Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline with $2.1 billion in funding
There have already been tens of thousands of people who have volunteered and received doses of both the Sputnik V and Pfizer vaccines during clinical trials. There are already some who have been vaccinated officially outside of the trails with both vaccines.
For many, the beginning of the end to this pandemic, It Has Arrived.