Why does India not get the benefits of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine candidate?

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has claimed that its vaccine candidate - BNT162b2 - is 95% effective against COVID-19 and the company will within days apply to USFDA for permission to be administered to patients. It will also share data with other regulatory agencies around the globe.

However, India will not get much benefit out of it because the vaccine candidate requires a temperature of minus 70 degrees celsius for storage.

"It is possible to maintain such a low degree of temperature in big cities but its mass circulation and vaccination is unlikely in far-off places such as villages and smaller cities," a senior doctor from a government hospital informs on the condition of anonymity.

He says that smaller cities and villages don't have cold chains that can provide such a low temperature. At present some vaccines like oral polio drop are stored at minus 15-degree celsius temperature.

He informs that even if the government makes arrangements for its storage it will be a highly costly affair. "We will have to wait for another vaccine whose storage temperature meets our available storage infrastructure," he said.

However, Pfizer's announcement is seen as a huge achievement as it is a big breakthrough in the fight against Covid-19. According to Pfizer, the vaccine's efficacy was consistent across age, gender, race, and ethnicity demographics; observed efficacy in adults over 65 years of age was over 94%.

"The companies expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021. Pfizer is confident in its vast experience, expertise, and existing cold-chain infrastructure to distribute the vaccine around the world," it says in a press release.