For months, The World Health Organization has called on countries to come together to ensure a fair distribution of Covid-19 vaccines among rich and poor nations. Now he is beginning to lose his temper.
On Monday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that drug manufacturers have given priority to regulatory approval in rich countries, where profits are highest, instead of filing full dossiers to get the green light from the global drug body. health. He said it could delay distribution through Covax, a WHO-backed initiative aimed at providing vaccines to poorer countries.
“The world is on the brink of catastrophic moral failure,” Tedros said. “Even though they speak the language of fair access, some countries and companies continue to prioritize bilateral transactions – going around Covax, raising prices and trying to stand in line. It is wrong.”
WHO struggles to open China’s gate to begin stepping up vaccine diplomacy, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi pledged last week to distribute more than a million doses during a swing across Southeast Asia. This meant a geopolitical victory just before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who promised to put the US back in the WHO after Donald Trump withdrew from the organization last year.
“China’s ‘mask’ diplomacy in 2020 will be followed in 2021 by ‘vaccine diplomacy,'” said Ian Storey, senior senior in the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. “The goals remain the same: to make friends and influence the countries of Southeast Asia and to bury the memory that the pandemic started in China a year ago.”
Antony Blinken, Biden’s election as Secretary of State, told lawmakers on Tuesday that the US is preparing to join Covax and look at “how we can help ensure that the vaccine is distributed fairly”. Biden officially takes over the United States on Wednesday
China’s vaccines have received some high-level approvals, and Indonesian President Joko Widodo has received Sinovac Biotech Ltd. filmed last week on live television in the fourth nation in the world, despite inconsistent effectiveness date. Brazil also began distributing 6 million doses of Sinovac on Monday – a rough figure for President Jair Bolsonaro, who was a critical critic of Chinese vaccines last year.
“I can not wait”
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who last month said his country would not use any vaccines that were not approved by the WHO, reversed course last week and accepted a million doses of the vaccine from China. He cited widespread use in places such as Indonesia, Egypt and China, noting that Wang received the vaccine and is still “in good health and can travel to places.”
“For the need to defend our nation and protect our people from this deadly epidemic, we can not wait,” Hun Sen said in a message. published on Friday in a newsletter of the cabinet. “We are reversing what I said last time about accepting only the vaccines recognized by World Health Organization.”
Because they do not have regulatory bodies with the capacity to examine scientific data, many developing countries have traditionally relied on the WHO list of approved vaccines to know what shots they can allow for local vaccination actions.
At the end of 2020, Pfizer Inc.—The BioNTech SE vaccine was the first and only shot to date received emergency validation from the WHO since the outbreak began a year ago. Without low-income countries that produce their own vaccines, richer nations have secured 85% of the Pfizer vaccine and all Moderna Inc., according to London-based research firm Airfinity Ltd.
While China is committed to supporting WHO efforts, its vaccines are not among those purchased by Covax. A Sinovac spokesman said the company had started transmitting WHO data for a prequalification of its coronavirus vaccine, known as CoronaVac. A group of WHO inspectors has also traveled to China and will inspect its production facilities after the quarantine is completed, the spokesman said.
Covax plans to distribute 2 billion doses worldwide by the end of this year, enough to protect 3% of the population in all participating countries by July, according to an answer to questions via email. The facility has stated that it will consider procuring any candidate vaccine that meets the global standards set by the WHO.
Of the 11 candidates he can reach for distribution, two – Modern Chair Inc. and the one developed by AstraZeneca Plc and Oxford University – are ready for launch and are administered in countries such as the USA and the United Kingdom. It is unclear why Covax has not yet started distributing these vaccines.
Tedros’ statements condemning companies for giving priority to rich countries where they can make the most profit indicate that the global health body believes the delay comes from companies.
AstraZeneca said on 30 December that it was looking for the WHO’s green light, known as the body’s emergency use list, “for an accelerated path to vaccine availability in low- and middle-income countries”. A company spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the status of the trial.
Uneven distribution
High-income countries have secured 85% of Pfizer’s vaccine and all of Moderna’s
Source: Airfinity
The launch of Covax could begin “as early as February pending favorable regulatory outcomes and the availability of health and national regulatory systems in individual participating economies,” said Iryna Mazur, a spokeswoman for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which is co-leader of Covax.
Thailand has bought 2 million doses from Sinovac, and China has promised to donate a total of 800,000 doses Philippines and Myanmar during Wang’s diplomatic impulse last week.
During a visit to Manila, Wang praised Philippine officials after pledging to complete China-funded infrastructure projects, including a $ 400 million bridge and a $ 940 million freight rail project.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte this week criticized a group of senators who examined the government’s plans to buy Sinovac, after previously threatening to conclude a Visiting Forces Agreement with the US if it fails to do so. deliver at least 20 million vaccines immediately. “No vaccine, no stay here,” Duterte said last month about the military deal – a threat he has made before without continuing.
“Coronavirus vaccines have clearly become a political football in the wake of the US-China Cold War,” said Paul Chambers of the Naresuan University’s Asean Community Studies Center, which has been researching geopolitics in Southeast Asia for about two decades. . “The daunting delay in launching Covax is exactly the opportunity China is using to initiate and expand its Sinovac offering to developing countries.”
– With the assistance of Philip Heijmans, Dong Lyu, Colum Murphy and Suzi Ring
(Updates with Blinken’s comments in the sixth paragraph.)