SAMUEL KUTTY
@samkuttyvp
The Sultanate is among countries in the world that are clamouring for COVID-19 vaccines. In addition to joining the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunisation (COVAX), the Ministry of Health has also formed a working group to choose the appropriate vaccine from specialized companies.
Indications are that Oman will have 20 per cent of the vaccines before the end of this year and will be given to frontline workers in its fight against the pandemic.
Even though the drug manufacturing giants like the United States going it alone and Russia deciding against joining, and China has yet to commit, a total of 172 countries, including Australia, have signed up to the initiative so far and they have to start paying into a fund to support the vaccine research by October 9.
Reports indicate that the US, through a government initiative called Operation Warp Speed, has already spent more than $5 billion to get drug makers to manufacture vaccines on its soil. China has a portfolio of its own candidates and has ramped up investment in bio-manufacturing.
Definitely, COVAX is a step in the right direction and “the fastest way to end this pandemic” as suggested by WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The initiative is the best of its kind in the commitment for vaccines to fight a common global enemy as it has outstripped any deal countries could make independently.
At the same time, challenges are also mounting at the same pace at which the race towards the success of developing the vaccine is progressing and will be available in the health centres in the next few months.
Instead of working together to craft and implement a global strategy, a growing number of countries are taking a “my nation first” approach to developing and distributing potential vaccines or other pharmaceutical treatments. This approach deprives countries with lesser wealth their right of access to the medicine.
This ‘vaccine nationalism’, as pointed out by a recent report in Harvard Business Review, “is not only morally reprehensible, it is the wrong way to reduce transmission globally”.
The COVAX does not prevent countries signing their own independent deals with manufacturers, as the UK, Canada and recently Australia have done. This could place additional strain on what are expected to be already limited supplies.
Vaccine nationalism is spurring concerns as it involves governments signing agreements with pharmaceutical manufacturers to supply their own populations with vaccines at the exclusion of others. This, according to experts, will make the initial few vaccines unaffordable and inaccessible to everyone.
If countries with a large number of coronavirus cases lag in obtaining the vaccine and other medicines, the disease will continue to disrupt global supply chains and, as a result, economies around the world.
Another challenge arising from the deals is that they can further drive up prices, potentially making them even more unaffordable for many countries in the Third World. While some manufacturers have pledged to make the vaccines available on a not-for-profit basis, others have not.
A nationalistic stance toward the pandemic will prolong this global health and economic crisis. A vaccine must be allocated on the basis of the best evidence of what will stop transmission and protect the most vulnerable groups — no matter in which nation they reside.
A vaccine can end the coronavirus pandemic but only if all countries ensure timely, equitable, global access to it. Selling vaccines to the highest bidders is not the way to go.
And there won’t be any surprise if companies, retailers, individuals try to resell them at massive multiples as they did in the beginning of the breakout of the pandemic with masks and other protective equipment.
Beyond financing, we need a global coordinated effort to estimate and account for the available global workforce of vaccinators, operationalize mass vaccination programs, implement plans for equitably allocating vaccines on a prioritized basis, and verify the delivery of vaccines.
I hope the allocation of vaccines, once licensed and approved, will be guided and monitored by a trusted governance system on the principles of fair and equitable access, ensuring no country will be left behind.
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