Russia and China seek to stimulate global influence

LONDON – International diplomacy is likely to determine who will have access to coronavirus vaccines in the coming months, analysts told CNBC, as countries like Russia and China are seen using one of the world’s most sought-after commodities to promote their own interests abroad. .

It is hoped that the launch of Covid-19 vaccines could help end the pandemic. While many countries have not yet started vaccination programs, even high-income nations are facing a shortage of supplies, while producers are struggling to accelerate production.

Russia and China have made the distribution of face masks and protective equipment to severely affected countries a central principle of diplomatic relations last year. Now, both countries are seen taking a transactional approach to vaccine administration.

Agathe Demarais, global director of forecasting at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC by telephone that Russia, China and to a lesser extent India are betting on supplying Covid vaccines to emerging or low-income countries to advance their interests.

“Russia and China have been doing this for a long, long time … especially in emerging countries, because they believe that traditional Western powers have withdrawn from these countries,” Demarais said.

“In the past, although it is still the case, we have seen China launch the Belt and Road Initiative, we have seen Russia do a number of things, especially in Middle Eastern countries with nuclear power plants, and vaccine diplomacy is a new brick in the whole edifice of their attempt to consolidate their global position. “

This strategy is likely to see Russia and China strengthen a long-term presence in countries around the world, Demarais said, noting that the fundamental importance of vaccines for people will make it “super, very difficult” for countries to withstand diplomatic pressure in the future.

However, the problem for Moscow and Beijing is that “there is a high chance” that both will overpromise and be underdeveloped, she added.

Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines have already begun global launches. A total of 26 countries, including Argentina, Hungary, Tunisia and Turkmenistan, have authorized Russia’s Covid vaccine. China’s customer queue includes, among others, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.

Analysts say both Russia and China have routinely signed supply agreements that strengthen pre-existing political alliances, but production problems for Western-made vaccines could be a sufficient incentive for some non-traditional allies to look to Moscow and Beijing.

Russia and China are currently unable to meet demand for vaccine supplies from their respective domestic markets and still export to countries around the world. Production is the main obstacle to this challenge, while many high-income countries have pre-ordered more doses than they need.

A report released by the Economist Intelligence Unit last month predicted that most of the adult population in advanced economies would be vaccinated by the middle of next year. Instead, this timeline extends to the beginning of 2023 for many middle-income countries and even to 2024 for some low-income countries.

It highlights the global mismatch between supply and demand and the strong divide between high-income and low-income countries when it comes to access to vaccines.

Last month, the World Health Organization’s top official warned that the world was on the brink of “catastrophic moral failure” due to Covid’s unequal vaccination policies.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on January 18 that it is clear that even though they speak the language of fair access to vaccines, “some countries and companies continue to prioritize bilateral transactions, going around COVAX, raising prices and trying to jump on the bandwagon. tails. “

“This is wrong,” he added.

Tedros condemned what he described as an “I-first” approach in high-income countries, saying he was self-defeating and putting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people at risk. Almost all high-income countries have given priority to distributing the vaccine to their own populations.

When asked if there is any prospect for countries to change their so-called “I-first” approach after the WHO’s warning about vaccine diplomacy, Demarais replied: “No, it will not happen. I follow him very carefully and everything is very depressing “.

COVAX is one of the three pillars of the so-called COVID-19 Instrument Accelerator, introduced by WHO, the European Commission and France last April. It focuses on equitable access to Covid diagnoses, treatments and vaccines to help less wealthy countries.

Analysts have long been skeptical about the efficiency with which COVAX can deliver supplies of Covid vaccines to middle- and low-income countries around the world, despite calls from several heads of state for global solidarity at the start of the pandemic.

The international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres described what we see today in terms of global access to vaccines as “far from fair.”

“The big challenge, once you get closer to the global level, is every time any country provides a bilateral agreement, it makes it much more difficult to introduce vaccines into the multilateral vessel through COVAX,” said Suerie Moon, co-director of the Global Health Center at the Graduate Institute Geneva, CNBC said by telephone.

In addition to this concern, Moon said: “We do not currently have any system at the international level, for example, to make sure that you can compare the effectiveness of the vaccine with where there is a circulating variant.”

She cited South Africa as a striking example. Earlier this month, South Africa suspended the launch of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after a study raised questions about its effectiveness against an extremely infectious variant first discovered in the country.

“In an ethical and rational world, South Africa would suddenly have access to effective vaccines against their variant, and AstraZeneca vaccines could be sent to another part of the world where that variant is not in circulation. That would be the rational way to do it, but we just don’t have the arrangements for this type of transaction, “Moon said.

“Ideally, this is the kind of thing that happens if you have strong international cooperation, but I think it will really be a mess,” she continued.

“We will have vaccines that expire in some countries, when they could be used elsewhere, we will have effective vaccines in one place, but they are not in the right place (and) we will have excess vaccines safely placed in while in another country people have nothing. “