Vaccine stockpile sharing for selfish objectives.
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 vac...
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2022-01-01
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Series: | PLOS Global Public Health |
Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001312 |
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author | Shashwat Shivam Joshua S Weitz Yorai Wardi |
author_facet | Shashwat Shivam Joshua S Weitz Yorai Wardi |
author_sort | Shashwat Shivam |
collection | DOAJ |
description | 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. |
first_indexed | 2024-03-12T04:12:19Z |
format | Article |
id | doaj.art-c9eb0d4a46c7489b95cd292e83e6caa0 |
institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
issn | 2767-3375 |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-03-12T04:12:19Z |
publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
record_format | Article |
series | PLOS Global Public Health |
spelling | doaj.art-c9eb0d4a46c7489b95cd292e83e6caa02023-09-03T11:02:08ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLOS Global Public Health2767-33752022-01-01212e000131210.1371/journal.pgph.0001312Vaccine stockpile sharing for selfish objectives.Shashwat ShivamJoshua S WeitzYorai WardiThe 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.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001312 |
spellingShingle | Shashwat Shivam Joshua S Weitz Yorai Wardi Vaccine stockpile sharing for selfish objectives. PLOS Global Public Health |
title | Vaccine stockpile sharing for selfish objectives. |
title_full | Vaccine stockpile sharing for selfish objectives. |
title_fullStr | Vaccine stockpile sharing for selfish objectives. |
title_full_unstemmed | Vaccine stockpile sharing for selfish objectives. |
title_short | Vaccine stockpile sharing for selfish objectives. |
title_sort | vaccine stockpile sharing for selfish objectives |
url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001312 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT shashwatshivam vaccinestockpilesharingforselfishobjectives AT joshuasweitz vaccinestockpilesharingforselfishobjectives AT yoraiwardi vaccinestockpilesharingforselfishobjectives |