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Leaked Documents Reveal Behind-the-Scenes Ebola Vaccine Issues

Posted by timothy on from the how-much-for-what-benefit-to-whom-with-what-certainty dept.

sciencehabit writes Extensive background documents from a meeting that took place today at the World Health Organization (WHO) have provided new details about exactly what it will take to test, produce, and bankroll Ebola vaccines, which could be a potential game changer in the epidemic. ScienceInsider obtained materials that vaccinemakers, governments, and WHO provided to the 100 or so participants at a meeting on 'access and financing' of Ebola vaccines. The documents put hard numbers on what until now have been somewhat fuzzy academic discussions. And they make clear to the attendees—who include representatives from governments, industry, philanthropies, and nongovernmental organizations—that although testing and production are moving forward at record speed, knotty issues remain.

3 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. So 1 x F35 = 60 million x vaccinations? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If an F35 costs $337M* and "27 million doses of vaccine" would cost $151 million (half to produce and half to deliver as per TFA), then one F35 would be worth about 60 million doses of vaccine? * (https://medium.com/war-is-boring/how-much-does-an-f-35-actually-cost-21f95d239398)

    1. Re:So 1 x F35 = 60 million x vaccinations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      85B / 337M = 252.22 (ebola-cost-units-per-wall-street-month)
      252.22 / 30 = 8.41 (ebola-cost-units-per-wall-street-day, assumes 30-day month)
      1440 / 8.41 = 171.22 (wall-street-minutes-per-ebola-cost-unit)
      171.22 / 60 = 2.85 (wall-street-hours-per-ebola-cost-unit)

      Yeah. A whole whopping 2 hours and 51 minutes of it.

      Wall Street needs to take a long, unpaid lunch, basically. That will provide a cure for Ebola. We'll even let them brag about it.

  2. Re:Money, money, money... by tlambert · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It seems that this all about the financial bottom line. I understand things cost money, but it would nice if there was, for once, more concern about human lives.

    Actually, it's not.

    Glaxo Smith Klein has said that even if they relax the bio safety level 2 requirements for filling the vaccine vials, after a certain (short) point, they will be converting their production of other vaccines from such diseases as rotavirus, measles, mumps, and rubella.

    At that point, we are talking about trading American lives to benefit Liberian lives.

    Note that the NewLink vaccine donated by Canada has demonstrated Ebola-like symptoms in many of the people who've been inoculated in Phase I trials, so it's entirely possible Canada Health has been giving those people either the virus or a weakened strain of the virus, and is actually infecting people. Apart from that, they also have the fill rate problem that GSK was complaining about, which would short-sheet supplies of other vaccines.