Australia risks relying on Pfizer and Moderna for COVID vaccine. 3 Ways to Break Free - wikiHow

Booster shots and childhood vaccinations mean we rely on two pharmaceutical companies to supply Australia's COVID vaccine. This needs to change. #Australiarisks #relyingPfizer #ModernaCOVID #vaccines The rapid development and deployment of COVID vaccines has been one of the greatest achievements of the pandemic. However, Australia risks relying on COVID vaccines from two main companies – Pfizer and Moderna – and that’s a problem. While the need for COVID vaccines is not going away anytime soon, we need to shape the market to drive more competition for better access to improved vaccines. Here’s what Australia needs to do to break free from an effective duopoly dominating the local market, especially when many of us are likely to need boosters. COVID vaccination recommendations evolve over time. Who is due for which dose now? How did we get here? When COVID finally broke out at scale in Australia late last year, the vaccines worked extremely well to reduce s and severe illness. Since January 1 this year, there have been more than 5.9 million confirmed COVID infections nationwide, but about 5,300 s. Yet current vaccines aren’t 100% effective at protecting against infection; new viral variants continue to emerge; protection via vaccination and prior infection wanes quite quickly, meaning reinfection is becoming more common and booster shots may remain part of the landscape for some time to come. Meanwhile, vaccine inequity remains an unresolved problem. This has led to a situation where rich countries, such as Australia, are giving booster shots where some poorer countries don’t even have enough vaccine for first doses. How Australia's fickleness on COVID vaccines is perpetuating global vaccine inequity Pfizer and Moderna, but not much else In a recent article in the Medical Journal of Australia, we outline the need to break free from the handful of powerful players still dominating Australia’s COVID vaccine market. While the number of approved COVID vaccines is growing around the world, Australia largely still relies on only two, namely vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The AstraZeneca and Novavax vaccines are only rarely used as boosters if no other vaccines are suitable. More than 95% of Australian adults have received two doses of COVID vaccine already. So future requirements are primarily for boosters and child vaccines. Australia, therefore, continues to face an effective duopoly. The power of patents This effective duopoly further reinforces the already considerable power these manufacturers hold via the intellectual property rights to their vaccines. These vaccine patents are protected by the World Trade Organization under the A