Australia’s former deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth has said Pfizer needs to stop talking about more doses of the Covid vaccine and instead use some of the huge profits the company has made to help solve a crucial global health problem – pneumococcal disease.

He argues it’s time for the pharmaceutical giant to step in to prevent the deaths of millions of young children from this preventable disease by offering the vaccine at cost to low-income countries.

“Pfizer would be doing the world a favor if it stopped talking about the fourth dose (Covid),” Dr Coatsworth said. news.com.au.

“It’s not their role, it’s probably irresponsible to talk about a fourth dose when there are a significant number of people in the world who have not had the opportunity to be vaccinated.

“It is also purely designed to generate revenue from wealthy countries worried about fourth doses.”

Earlier, he tweeted at Pfizer, “Hey Pfizer instead of doing press releases about how we all need a 4th dose of Covid 19 vaccine, how about we really surprise us and provide a pneumococcal vaccine at cost to all low-income countries.

“Be like Astra.”

Pneumococcal disease is the name for any infection caused by bacteria called Streptococcus pneumoniae or pneumococcus and is especially serious for young children and the elderly. It can cause pneumonia, bacteremia and meningitis.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that Streptococcus pneumoniae kills more than 300,000 children under the age of 5 worldwide each year. Most of these deaths occur in developing countries.

“Pneumococcal disease is an important cause of death in children under 5 in low- and middle-income countries,” said Dr Coatsworth.

“For 20 years we had a good vaccine against it, but that vaccine was not affordable for particularly low-income countries.”

He said the amount they pay per dose is $9, but pharmaceutical companies receive subsidies that bring it up to about $21 per dose, which is out of reach for many immunization programs in low-income countries. income.

“So millions of children in low-income countries are being deprived of a readily available vaccine.”

“Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla came out twice to talk about the need for a fourth dose of the Covid vaccine, Moderna CEO also did.

“It’s a problem because you don’t listen to the person who is responsible for shareholder profits if they tell you to take medicine.”

Pfizer is making huge profits, making nearly US$37 billion (A$51 billion) in sales of its Covid-19 vaccine last year and projecting $75 billion in sales in 2022.

“Given the enormous profit that Pfizer in particular has made from Covid-19, one would think that if they were good corporate citizens, they might choose to subsidize some of their other vaccines themselves for countries to low or middle income, to provide them at a cost that can effectively afford.” They don’t do that and haven’t done it for 20 years… It would be a simple and effective action, it would help in part to catch up two decades of not doing so, or about millions of deaths. »

Dr Coatsworth said the pneumococcal vaccine would have an even bigger impact for children around the world than the Covid-19 vaccine.

“Pneumococcal disease is a bigger problem than Covid.”

He said the company’s actions were stark contrast to AstraZeneca which had pledged since the start of the Covid crisis not to take advantage of the vaccine as long as a pandemic remained. While AstraZeneca recently announced it is moving to a for-profit model for the Covid-19 vaccine it developed with Oxford University, the vaccine will continue to be sold at cost to developing countries. development.

news.com.au has contacted Pfizer for comment.