Vaccine stockpile sharing for selfish objectives.
PLOS Glob Public Health
; 2(12): e0001312, 2022.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2196841
ABSTRACT
The COVAX program aims to provide global equitable access to life-saving vaccines. Despite calls for increased sharing, vaccine protectionism has limited progress towards vaccine sharing goals. For example, as of April 2022 only ~20% of the population in Africa had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. Here we use a two-nation coupled epidemic model to evaluate optimal vaccine-sharing policies given a selfish objective:
in which countries with vaccine stockpiles aim to minimize fatalities in their own population. Computational analysis of a suite of simulated epidemics reveal that it is often optimal for a donor country to share a significant fraction of its vaccine stockpile with a recipient country that has no vaccine stockpile. Sharing a vaccine stockpile reduces the intensity of outbreaks in the recipient, in turn reducing travel-associated incidence in the donor. This effect is intensified as vaccination rates in a donor country decrease and epidemic coupling between countries increases. Critically, vaccine sharing by a donor significantly reduces transmission and fatalities in the recipient. Moreover, the same computational framework reveals the potential use of hybrid sharing policies that have a negligible effect on fatalities in the donor compared to the optimal policy while significantly reducing fatalities in the recipient. Altogether, these findings provide a self-interested rationale for countries to consider sharing part of their vaccine stockpiles.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
Topics:
Vaccines
Language:
English
Journal:
PLOS Glob Public Health
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Journal.pgph.0001312
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