term paper topic by Teams of 2 Students:

“Efficient and Equitable Distribution of COVID-19 Vaccine on a Global Scale: Challenges of Balancing National Priorities and Global Health”

Background:

As of now, about 160 vaccines are in various stages of development and few are in different stages of clinical trials. It widely believed that by the end of the year or early in 2021 there will be vaccines in the market. The USA initiated “Operation Warp Speed” to provide funding support for clinical trials and manufacturing on the condition that if successful the US should have the priority to secure 100m doses. The Chinese Premier pledged to turn any vaccine developed by China to a “global public good.”

Since the end is in sight, USA, UK, EU, Japan and other wealthy countries have already paid billions of dollars and locked up billions of doses if and when the vaccines are available. This leaves the low income and poor countries out of the loop. Nearly 50% of world population live under $5.50 a day and cannot meet even the basic needs (World Bank) and this population won’t be able to pay for vaccines and depend upon WHO and organizations like Melinda Gates Foundation, GARVI and others.

Some Issues:

1.Never in the human history, business and governments were called upon to develop a safe vaccine in a global scale at an affordable cost and at a short time. Then how do governments, business and NGOs work collaboratively to develop and make vaccine for COVID-19 to meet global demand?

2.Scaling up production in a short time is a major challenge. Given the choice of in-house and or contract manufacturing what do you think the nations, institutions and firms should do to manage the supply of Vaccine?

Structure of the term paper:

(i). Provide an abstract (about 300 words) in a separate page (page not counted);

(ii). Limit the length of your paper to 15 pages in double space. Use APA writing style.

(iii). Provide tables, graphs, if any as an appendix (page not counted);

(iv). Provide bibliography in a separate page (page not counted)

(v). Review and edit the paper before submitting on Canvas before the due date;

Suggested readings:

1.A comprehensive COVID-19 Vaccine Plan: Efficient Manufacturing, Financing and Distribution of a COVID -19 Vaccine,

Toper Spiro and Zeke Emanuel, July 2020, American Progress

https://cdn.americanprogress.org/content/uploads/2020/07/27133037/CovidVaccine-report.pdf (Links to an external site.)

1. A Covid-19 Vaccine will need Equitable, Global Distribution, By Rebecca Weintraub, Prashant Yadav and Seth Berkley, Harvard Business Review, April 2, 2020

https://montclair.instructure.com/courses/120389/f…

1. https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/15-07-2020-more-than-150-countries-engaged-in-covid-19-vaccine-global-access-facility (Links to an external site.)
2. https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-partners-launch-18-billion-effort-to-distribute-covid-19-vaccines-globally-11593194198 (Links to an external site.)

5. ‘Vaccine nationalism’ threatens global plan to distribute COVID-19 shots fairly, Kai Kupferschmidt (Links to an external site.)Jul. 28, 2020

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/vaccine-nationalism-threatens-global-plan-distribute-covid-19-shots-fairly (Links to an external site.)

6. The Equitable Distribution of COVID-19 Therapeutics and Vaccines

Thomas J. Bollyky, JD1 (Links to an external site.); Lawrence O. Gostin, JD2 (Links to an external site.); Margaret A. Hamburg, MD3 (Links to an external site.)

JAMA. 2020;323(24):2462-2463. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.6641

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2765944