Five companies to deliver more than 240 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in the U.S.
DORAL, FL – Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Novavax could be able to deliver more than 240 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in the U.S. throughout March and April.
Pfizer and Moderna, the two companies already authorized in the U.S. for COVID-19 vaccines emergency use, have pledged to provide a combined total of 220 million doses that would be shipped by the end of March, reported CNN.
Johnson & Johnson, on the other hand, has pledged to make 20 million COVID-19 vaccine doses available in the same time frame, although is still waiting for emergency use approval by the US Food and Drug Administration that could possibly arrive this week.
“If the emergency use authorization is received this week, we hope to contribute to ending this pandemic as soon as possible,” Dr. Richard Nettles, J&J’s vice president of medical affairs, told lawmakers. He also stated the company is prepared to ship nearly 4 million doses upon authorization of the vaccine.
In addition, AstraZeneca will release 30 million doses in the country when its vaccine is authorized by the FDA possibly by April and up to 50 million doses afterwards for the end of April, according to Dr.Ruud Dobber, the executive vice president and president of AstraZeneca’s biopharmaceuticals business unit cited by CNN.
About Novavax, it is unclear how many doses the company will deliver but according to the report from the media, all five drug companies have contracts with the US government to eventually provide 1.1 billion doses of the vaccine which will cover nearly 600 million people, close to twice the US population.
The five drug companies are amongst the highest effective COVID-19 vaccines in the world. Pfizer/BioNTech is 95% effective to prevent symptomatic infections, while Moderna is 94% effective.
Novavax, for its part, has proven to be around 89,3% effective; 95.6% against the original novel coronavirus and 85.6%, against the variant identified for the first time in the United Kingdom.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine is 70% effective against the coronavirus and Johnson & Johnson, 66%, according to another report of CNN.
Other vaccines in this list are Sputnik V with a 91,6% effectiveness to prevent symptomatic COVID-19 and 100% effectiveness to prevent serious illnesses; Sinopharm with a 79,34% effectiveness; and Sinovac with 49,62% effectiveness (it was able to prevent 78% of mild cases and 100% of moderate and severe cases).