Vaccine Supply: Shortages and Challenges

https://khn.org/news/article/after-billions-of-dollars-and-dozens-of-wartime-declarations-why-are-vaccines-still-in-short-supply/

The article linked to above provides an excellent overview of the status and rollout of US COVID-19 vaccines and explains some of the technical and organizational challenges in producing novel vaccines using unproven platforms in a highly time-sensitive environment.  Amongst the challenges are coping with shortages in supply surge in equipment, reagents, trained personnel and facility capacity, all the while conducting human clinical trials in a truncated regulatory environment.

Dr. Kevin Gilligan, Senior Consultant for Biologics Consulting and a vaccine expert, is quoted in the article: “A year ago there was no commercial market for mRNA product. There was scientific research and pharma making small-volume clinical lots. Now we need billions of doses, in the space of a year. That’s overloading the supply infrastructure…”.

The article further discusses the manufacturing fill-and-finish bottlenecks that have occurred and the steps that are being taken to alleviate them.

Kaiser Health News(KHN). (2021) After Billions of Dollars and Dozens of Wartime Declarations, Why are Vaccines still in Short Supply? Retrieved from source.