The fight to manufacture Covid vaccines in lower-income countries

‘Instead of holding out for today’s popular vaccines, some researchers hope that those in clinical trials will be easier to license and make in the global south. At the top of the list are protein-subunit vaccines, in which peptides matching those from SARS-CoV-2 teach the immune system to recognize the virus and fight it off. Researchers say the benefit of such vaccines is that vats of yeast or insect cells can churn out huge quantities of peptides, making the vaccines scalable. They add that many companies are familiar with the process because they produce vaccines for other diseases and recombinant drugs in a similar fashion.’

Read here (Nature, Sept 15, 2021)

End vaccine apartheid

‘Vaccine costs have pushed many developing countries to the end of the COVID-19 vaccination queue, with most low-income ones not even lining up. Worse, less vaccinated poor nations cannot afford fiscal efforts to provide relief or stimulate recovery, let alone achieve Agenda 2030.’

This story is well argued and contains several relevant and informative links under the following subheadings:

• Excluding by appropriating:
• Profits booster
• Profits over science
• Apartheid booster
• Vaccine equity necessary

Read here (IPS News, Sept 7, 2021)

Central banks must address pandemic challenges

‘Hopes for an inclusive global economic recovery are fast fading. As rich countries have done little to ensure poor countries’ access to vaccines and fiscal resources, North-South “fault lines” will certainly widen.’

This story is well argued and contains several relevant and informative links under the following subheadings:

• Enhancing relief, recovery, transformation
• Macroeconomic policy coordination
• Central banks’ developmental role
• Supporting transformation
• Bolder actions needed

Read here (IPS News, Aug 3, 2021)

Put people before profits for progress

‘Millions of people are expected to die due to delayed and unaffordable access to COVID-19 tests, treatment, personal protective equipment and vaccines. Urgent cooperation is desperately needed to save lives and livelihoods for all.’

This story is well argued and contains several relevant and informative links under the following subheadings:

• Vaccine apartheid
• Pfizer profits
• What the pandemic demands
• Technology transfer needed
• What the world needs now

Read here (IPS News, May 18, 2021)

How can we vaccinate the world? Five challenges facing the UN-backed COVAX programme

‘Vaccines are a key part of the solution to ending the COVID-19 pandemic and, since the early stages of the crisis, the World Health Organization (WHO) has argued that there needs to be a coordinated approach towards ensuring that everyone, not just people living in rich countries,  receives adequate protection from the virus, as it spread rapidly across the world.

‘Out of this concern grew the Global COVAX Facility, the only global initiative that is working with governments and manufacturers to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are available worldwide to both higher and lower income countries.  

‘Here are five things to know about the challenges facing COVAX, and how they can be overcome...

1. Export controls: the weakest link?
2. Getting vaccines to those who need them is not easy
3. More funding is needed to help rollout in the poorest countries
4. Richer countries should share excess doses
5. Vaccine hesitancy: a continued cause for concern 

Read here (UN News, Apr 5, 2021) 

End vaccine apartheid before millions more die

‘At least 85 poor countries will not have significant access to coronavirus vaccines before 2023. Unfortunately, a year’s delay will cause an estimated 2.5 million avoidable deaths in low and lower-middle income countries. As the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General has put it, the world is at the brink of a catastrophic moral failure.’

This story is well argued and contains several relevant and informative links under the following subheadings:

• Vaccine apartheid
• Suppressing vaccine access
• Big Pharma’s price gouging
• Hypocrisy
• Biden must act
• Sharing knowledge crucial

Read here (IPS News, Mar 23, 2021)

Vaccine makers say coronavirus could be stopped around the globe in months rather than years. Here's how

‘[Bangladhesh's] drug makers say they could produce hundreds of millions of doses in a quick timeframe, if only they could secure a vaccine blueprint... Incepta Pharmaceuticals lies on the outskirts of the Bangladesh capital Dhaka, in an industrial neighbourhood. Fitted out with the latest technology from Germany, the company already produces vaccines to fight a wide array of diseases such as hepatitis b, typhoid, the flu, tetanus, measles, meningococcal and rabies.

‘Mr [Abdul] Muktadir [chairman of Incepta Pharmaceuticals] said the company had plenty of capacity to produce more drugs and could manufacture between 600 to 800 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines annually. "If we get the ready-to-fill material or antigen, instead of waiting until 2023, we can make this vaccine available to our entire nation population within two to three months' time," he said.’

Read here (ABC News, Mar 20, 2021)

The new normal (Phase 2)

‘So, we’re almost a year into the “New Normal” (a/k/a “pathologized totalitarianism”) and things are still looking … well, pretty totalitarian. Most of Western Europe is still in “lockdown,” or “under curfew,” or in some other state of “health emergency.” Police are fining and arresting people for “being outdoors without a valid reason.”  Protest is still banned. Dissent is still censored.

‘The official propaganda is relentless. Governments are ruling by edict, subjecting people to an ever-changing series of increasingly absurd restrictions of the most fundamental aspects of everyday life.

‘And now, the campaign to “vaccinate” the entirety of humanity against a virus that causes mild to moderate flu-like symptoms or, more commonly, no symptoms at all, in over 95% of those infected, and that over 99% of the infected survive (and that has no real effect on age-adjusted death rates, and the mortality profile of which is more or less identical to the normal mortality profile) is being waged with literally religious fervor.

“Vaccine passports” (which are definitely creepy, but which bear no resemblance to Aryan Ancestry Certificates, or any other fascistic apartheid-type documents, so don’t even think about making such a comparison!) are in the pipeline in a number of countries. They have already been rolled out in Israel.’

Read here (OffGuardian, Mar 9, 2020)

Neoliberal finance undermines poor countries’ recovery

‘After being undermined by decades of financial liberalisation, developing countries now are not only victims of vaccine imperialism, but also cannot count on much financial support as their COVID-19 recessions drag on due to global vaccine apartheid...

‘Undoubtedly, distressed developing countries desperately need foreign exchange to cope. But IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva’s call to boost global liquidity with “a sizeable SDR” (Special Drawing Right) allocation was blocked by the Trump administration, who objected that it would give China, Iran, Russia, Syria and Venezuela access to new funds.

‘The Financial Times (FT) argues that the proposed new SDR1tn (US$1.37tn) issuance – almost five times the US$283bn issued in 2009 – is justified by the scale of the crisis. For the FT, it would be “the simplest and most effective way to get additional purchasing power into the hands of the countries that need it”...

‘With 85% of IMF votes required to issue new SDRs, and the US holding veto power with 16.5%, Biden administration support is vital. For SDR issuance under US$650 billion, the White House only needs to consult, rather than get approval from the US Congress.’

Read here (IPS News, Mar 1, 2021)

Vaccine apartheid or corona-utopia — 6 post-pandemic futures

‘There are two types of people in the post-pandemic world: those who have been vaccinated and those who haven’t. Now, national leaders across the world are considering making that official.

‘So-called immunity passes are already a reality in Israel. With nearly half of the adult population vaccinated, the government announced last month that gyms, hotels, pools and cultural events can reopen for people who can present a QR code proving their immunity. The U.K. is exploring a similar option, and in the EU, experts say a proposal for a “digital green pass” facilitating cross-border travel could easily find domestic applications...

‘Ethicists and public health advocates note that such passes would be wildly discriminatory right now, when vaccines are in shortage. But they could easily become reality once supply outstrips demand (at least in wealthy countries) and restaurants, hotels, airlines and cultural venues seek safe ways to reopen.

‘How they are managed, and how they are accepted, will determine whether immunity passes offer a return to normalcy or usher in some sort of dystopic sci-fi scenario. Using our crystal ball (and a good deal of reporting), POLITICO has compiled snapshots from six possible futures that might be lying in wait for us before the end of the year:

1. Corona-utopia
2. Vaccine apartheid
3. Back to the future
4. Legal limbo
5. Whole new hassle
6. Why bother?

Read here (Politico, March 2021) 

Bill Gates, Big Pharma and entrenching the vaccine apartheid

‘It appears that South Africa and India were right. Under the current rules, the vaccine cannot be made quickly or cheaply enough to meet global demand, which vaccines are only going to those countries that can afford it. This is a “catastrophic moral failure”, said the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Some activists have described the situation as a “vaccine apartheid”...

‘Nonetheless, the proposal for a patent waiver has been repeatedly rejected at the WTO by wealthier countries including the European Union, the United Kingdom, US and Switzerland; countries which, as Reuters wryly noted, are “all home to major pharmaceutical companies”. They also all enjoy early access to the vaccine.

‘Nor has South Africa and India’s proposal received support from the most influential non-state actor in global public health: Bill Gates...

‘But despite Gates’ stated commitment to an equitable distribution of the Covid vaccine, he is refusing to back South Africa and India’s calls for a waiver on patents... 

‘This should not come as a surprise: the Gates Foundation has historically been opposed to efforts to reform intellectual property protections for pharmaceutical companies — putting it at odds with other public health NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders (MSF) — and has in fact lobbied for developing countries to impose even stronger protections for drug companies’ patents. This is perhaps because Gates’ own fortune is built on intellectual property, specifically the copy­rights and patents associated with Windows and Microsoft.’

Read here (Mail&Guardian of South Africa, Jan 30, 2021)