A WHO-led program to ensure poorer countries have fair access to COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments aims to secure antiviral drugs for patients with mild symptoms for as little as US$10 per course, a draft document seen by Reuters says.
Merck & Co’s experimental pill molnupiravir is likely to be one of the drugs, and other drugs to treat people with mild symptoms are being developed.
The document, which outlines the goals of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) until September next year, says that the program wants to deliver about 1 billion COVID-19 tests to poorer nations and procure drugs to treat up to 120 million patients globally, out of about 200 million new cases it estimates in the next 12 months.
Photo: AFP / Merck & Co,Inc / Handout
The plans highlight how the WHO wants to shore up supplies of drugs and tests at a relatively low price after losing the vaccine race to wealthy nations that scooped up a huge share of the world’s supplies, leaving the world’s poorest countries with few shots.
An ACT-A spokesperson said the document, dated Wednesday last week, was still a draft under consultation and declined to comment on its content before it is finalized.
The document is to be sent to global leaders ahead of a G20 summit in Rome at the end of this month.
The ACT-A asks the G20 and other donors for additional funding of US$22.8 billion until September next year, which would be used to buy and distribute vaccines, drugs and tests to poorer nations and narrow the huge gaps in supply between wealthy and less advanced countries.
Donors have so far pledged US$18.5 billion to the program.
The financial requests are based on detailed estimates about the price of drugs, treatments and tests, which would account for the program’s biggest expenses alongside the cost of distributing vaccines.
Although it does not explicitly cite molnupiravir, the ACT-A document expects to pay US$10 per course for “novel oral antivirals for mild/moderate patients.”
Other pills to treat mild patients are being developed, but molnupiravir is the only one that has so far showed positive results in late-stage trials. The ACT-A is in talks with Merck & Co and generics producers to buy the drug.
The price is very low compared with the US$700 per course that the US has agreed to pay for 1.7 million courses of the treatment.
However, a Harvard university study estimated that molnupiravir could cost about US$20 dollars if produced by generic drugmakers, with the price potentially going down to US$7.7 under optimized production.
Merck & Co has licensing deals with eight Indian generic drugmakers.
The ACT-A document says that its target is to reach a deal by the end of next month to secure the supply of an “oral outpatient drug,” which it aims to be available from the first quarter of next year.
The money raised would initially be used to “support procurement of up to 28 million treatment courses for highest risk mild/moderate patients over the next 12 months, depending on product availability, clinical guidance, and volumes changing with evolution of needs,” the document says, adding that this volume would be secured under an advance purchase agreement.
Larger additional amounts of new oral antivirals to treat mild patients are also expected to be procured at a later stage, the document says.
Another 4.3 million courses of repurposed COVID-19 pills to treat critical patients are also expected to be purchased at a price of US$28 per course, the document says, without naming any specific drug.
The ACT-A also intends to address essential medical oxygen needs of 6 to 8 million severe and critical patients by September next year.
The program also plans to invest massively in COVID-19 diagnostics to at least double the number of tests carried out in poorer nations, defined as low income and low-middle income countries.
Of the US$22.8 billion, ACT-A plans to raise in the next 12 months, about one-third and the largest share is to be spent on diagnostics, the document says.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
RSS