THE DIFFICULTIES OF DISTRIBUTION ETHICS OF THE COVID-19 VACCINE By
Rachel Zhang Sophia Carino
In the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought immeasurable loss, suffering, and isolation to hundreds of millions of people across the globe. As the virus and its new variants exhibit detrimental effects, the world has poured copious funding into the development and research of vaccines. Under normal circumstances, the production and distribution of a vaccine involve extensive funding for research, reviews, and clinical trials in a process which can take several decades. Given the urgency of COVID-19, these results were accelerated to reach approval within just 12 months. As the virus continues its way into 2021, several of these vaccines have been
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approved and are readily available. In the United States, Pfizer-Biotech and Moderna are two mRNA vaccines which were approved in late December 2020. The mRNA injected through the upper arm provides the body’s immune system, particularly the memory T and B cells with key information regarding how to fight the virus given an actual encounter. Pfizer-Biotech administers a two-shot vaccine with a 21-day difference, whereas Moderna has a longer, 28-day difference between the first and second shot. As of February 2021, Johnson & Johnson applied for emergency FDA approval for a different, one-shot vaccination. This
vaccine modifies an adenovirus, which stores instructions to fight COVID-19 in DNA rather than mRNA. Nevertheless, as these vaccines develop and phases of distribution begin, there remain several complex issues regarding which countries and which people should be receiving this finite number of vaccines first.
Distribution In Countries Evidently, the development of a vaccine with sufficient funding has disproportionately occurred in wealthier countries which can afford such urgent acceleration.
