Vaccine Nationalism: Obstacle In-front of The Collective Effort to End The Pandemic
Vaccine Nationalism
World Leaders Launching Vaccines to Fulfill Their Own Political Interests
The whole world is currently going through very rough time. Global Pandemic caused by world wide spread of the SARS COV-2, have hit global supply chains and the economy of most of the countries are facing serious downfall (Indian GDP growth have seen around 23.9% downfall in first quarter).
Since the ‘International Public Health Emergency’ declared in January, 30 by WHO, the world has seen record number of rises Covid positive cases in daily basis. In this situation the whole world is eagerly waiting for any potential vaccine or drug to come in the market.
But the question remains – If a vaccine is developed, will it be capable to stop this Global Pandemic so soon??
The reality is however very concerning – “Vaccine Nationalism” may fail any collective initiative to end this pandemic. Leader of economically powerful countries are signing individual deals with different vaccine manufacturing countries to grab all for their country, as soon as any potential vaccine is launched in the market.
The concern
Economically stronger countries investing and signing deals with different manufacturers to get vaccine dosages, as soon as it is released, ahead of others. In current scenario no one knows which vaccine will be effective and when it will be launched for commercial use. As of now any vaccine has not completed all its clinical trials, but the wealthy countries are signing multiple deals with different manufactures. According to a report, some of the richer nations have already signed deals with multiple companies to secure more than 3.7 billion dosages for them. For example, United Kingdom have already secured 5 dosages per citizen, Canada have currently signed deals with 2 companies for more than 88 million dosages of vaccine for its citizen, recently Australia have also signed deals with some companies to secure its vaccine dosages.
The COVAX initiative
WHO and its partners, the global vaccine alliance and coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, have taken the Covid-19 Global Access (COVAX) Initiative. About 172 countries including India have signed the initiative. The aim of this initiative is to launch a collective forum for all countries to move in the same direction and help each other, rising above the “vaccine nationalism”. Low income countries signing up this plan, will get access to safe and affordable vaccine which will not be possible for these countries if they try individually.
Several rocky obstacles are lying before this WHO initiative. Individual countries may still sign independent deals with the vaccine manufacturers. US, Russia, China, UK, Australia, Canada, India and some others have already signed individual deals with the vaccine manufacturers.
Many important economic and influential powers like USA, Russia, China, have kept themselves out of this global initiative.
There are several points of concern within the initiative itself. COVAX have proposed for only 2 billion vaccine dosages for all the participating members, which is certainly not enough. Also, these vaccines will be sourced from all the successful candidates funded by COVAX. All of the vaccine candidates may not be equally effective.
Will a potential vaccine be able to end the pandemic so soon??
The answer is not affirmative in some sense. The “vaccine nationalism” may halt all the collective efforts to end this global pandemic. Over 200 vaccine candidates all over the world are currently in developmental stages and several of them are in different phases of clinical trials, but there is very little hope for many economically poorer countries all over the world from these potential vaccine trials.
The impact of vaccine nationalism was seen previously in the case of Swine Flu outbreak. When the vaccine for Swine Flu was launched, the richer countries grabbed all for them according to the deals signed with manufacturers earlier. The poor countries were only able to get these vaccines once the demand of the richer countries was fulfilled.
It is perfectly all right that the political leaders of these countries are concerned about their citizen and want their country to be back on track of economic activity, but they need to keep in mind that there is a practical limit of how many dosages of vaccine can be manufactured within a year. If the richer countries signs deal of billions of vaccine dosages for themselves the poor countries can only be able to get the vaccine only after couple of years when the first vaccine will come in the market. This in no way will be helpful to end the pandemic and restore the global supply chain.
Global leaders need to understand that, this is time for global cooperation not politics. Unless the charge of distribution of vaccine is transferred to the hands of epidemiologists virologists and global organisations like WHO, it is highly doubtable that the pandemic will disappear form the globe so soon.
Political leaders deciding whether a vaccine is safe or not
Another serious issue is that the political leaders with very little or zero knowledge about the field of vaccine research are deciding not only when to launch a vaccine, but they are also certifying whether a vaccine is safe for use or not bypassing all scientific protocols.
There is standard procedure to follow in vaccine research which can’t be bypassed for the sake of anything. Unfortunately the world leaders cares very little about the science, vaccine research or the standard procedures which is needed to be followed but their own political gain.
We have witnessed couple of examples in recent days where leaders of different countries announcing the launch of vaccine to cure Covid-19.
We can take the example of Russia and China in this regard. Few days back Putin, the President of Russia announced that the scientists of his country have developed a potential vaccine for Covid-19. The Russian president claimed that his country is the first in the world to develop any vaccine which can cure Covid-19 disease. The vaccine was given the name Sputnik-V, which might remind you the glorifying past of Russian space missions, when Russia was considered to be one the most powerful nations both economically, militarily and in the field of science and technology as well. But one may raise the question, is it truly glorifying for any country to launch any vaccine, for any disease which is causing world pandemic, without following standard procedure and not completing all its trials successfully?
A deeper analysis reveals true intention behind this move of Vladimir Putin. There are many reasons behind this vaccine announcement which are basically of political nature. Putin has lost his popularity within his country in past few years, which is not desirable when you are aiming to be the “President for Life”. With the current pandemic situation is getting out of control and world economy is at the blink of collapse, what can be more effective if you want to get your popularity back, than launching a vaccine. This vaccine launch can be beneficial for Putin in two ways, first of all, he can convince his countrymen that Russia is restoring its past glory under his leadership and secondly, what can be more effective way to stabilize the collapsing economy of any country in the time of global pandemic than launching a potential cure to end the pandemic. Any country can earn billions by supplying the cure for the pandemic all over the world.
How can China be left behind? China was not very late in announcing it’s first Covid-19 vaccine soon after Russia. Xi Jinping the “President for Life” of China, who has gained enough criticizer both within his country and outside, had to take necessary steps to shut the moth of the criticizers. Some current incidents indicate Xi is losing his grip within his own party as well. It is the wisest move to launch a vaccine when the whole world is blaming you for the spread of the pandemic around the globe.
In India we have also witnessed the announcement by the government to gift its citizens by launching a Covid-19 vaccine on 15th August on the eve of Independence Day celebration. However, after facing enough criticism domestically, government decided not to interfere unscientifically in the matter of vaccine research.
One thing is to be understood by the political leaders that a vaccine for any disease is not as easy to develop as a cup of tea on their table. Science or research does not follow orders from anyone. Every scientific endeavor takes its own time for its development. There is no written recipe to develop a vaccine, but requires series of scientific experiments and analysis for any positive result. One does not have the right to launch a vaccine for any disease without following the standard procedures and required trials, risking millions of lives around the globe, just for the purpose of fulfilling their political ambitions. Politicians should leave science and scientists alone for betterment of the world.
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