The current health emergency has left several lessons and one of the biggest is the role of the pharmaceutical industry. Thanks to the sum of research and large amounts of money, a vaccine against Covid-19 was developed in record time. Before a year had passed since the first contagion was detected, a biological agent was already available to avoid serious symptoms of the disease. This is an amazing fact that has never been observed before.
In this way, at the end of 2020, the first doses of immunization were applied in the world. option was first designed by Pfizer and then others have been added that have some differences such as effectiveness, although in the end they all work the same. The most important thing is that they considerably reduce the probability of dying from this new disease.
There are currently around two dozen Covid-19 vaccine options available in the world. In all cases, they had to pass all the stages of clinical trials to demonstrate their correct operation. Some had some problems during their development but in the end they have positioned themselves as alternatives to stop the pandemic.
How many doses have been manufactured in the world?
In that sense, 2021 was a key year because an exponential increase was observed with respect to the manufacture of doses of the biological. According to data from Airfinity published by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the Network of Vaccine Manufacturers of Developing Countries (DCVMN) and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), just over 11 billion doses were produced throughout the year.
This has been necessary to meet the needs of the world population. While if production continues at the current rate, a total of 19.8 billion doses of the Covid-19 vaccine could be produced by the end of the first half of 2022. This figure is equivalent to 2.5 doses for every person in the world.
Taking these numbers into account, now the most important thing is to think about the global distribution of inputs to reduce inequality of opportunities. While some nations like Israel have already begun the application of the fourth dose among their inhabitants, there are others like most of Africa that have not even received the first.