Yusuff Adebayo Adebisi knows that a vaccine that offers 70% protection against COVID-19 could be a valuable tool against the coronavirus pandemic in Nigeria — especially if that vaccine is cheap and doesn’t have to be stored at extremely cold temperatures. But what if another vaccine — one that is more expensive to buy and to store — was 95% effective?
“Should we send the less-effective vaccine to Africa? Or should we look for a way to strengthen the cold storage?” asks Adebisi, director for research at African Young Leaders for Global Health, a non-profit organization based in Abuja.
These are the kinds of question facing researchers and government leaders worldwide, as they take stock of the emerging selection of coronavirus vaccines and try to decide which will be most useful in putting an end to a pandemic that has already taken nearly 2.5 million lives. It is a decision shaped by limited supplies and hampered by limited data, says Cristina Possas, a public-health...
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