For months, the The World Health Organization has called on countries to come together to ensure fair distribution of Covid-19 vaccines among rich and poor countries. Now it is starting to lose patience.
On Monday, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said drug manufacturers had prioritized regulatory approval in wealthy countries, where profits are highest, rather than filing full files to get the green light from the global health organization. . He said this could slow distribution through Covax, a WHO-backed initiative that aims to deliver vaccines to poorer countries.
“The world is on the brink of catastrophic moral failure,” said Tedros. Even while speaking the language of fair access, some countries and companies continue to prioritize bilateral deals – going around Covax, driving prices up and trying to jump the front line. This is wrong.”
The WHO’s fight has opened the door for China to step up its vaccine diplomacy, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi pledging last week to dispense more than a million doses on a swing across Southeast Asia. That amounted to a geopolitical victory just before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has vowed to rejoin the US after Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the organization last year.
“China’s ‘mask diplomacy’ in 2020 will be followed by ‘vaccine diplomacy’ in 2021,” said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. “The goals remain the same: to win friends and influence countries in Southeast Asia and to bury the memory that the pandemic started in China a year ago.”
Antony Blinken, Biden’s choice of State Secretary, told lawmakers Tuesday that the US is preparing to join Covax and look at “how we can help ensure that the vaccine is distributed fairly.” Biden will officially take over in the US on Wednesday.
China’s vaccines have received some high-profile recommendations, with Indonesian President Joko Widodo taking the Sinovac Biotech Ltd. was shot live on television last week in the fourth most populous country in the world, despite inconsistent effectiveness data. Brazil also began distributing 6 million doses of Sinovac on Monday – a turnaround for President Jair Bolsonaro, who was an outspoken critic of Chinese vaccines last year.
‘Can’t Wait Any Longer’
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who said last month that his country would not use vaccines that had not been approved by the WHO, reversed course last week and accepted one million vaccine doses from China. He cited widespread use in places like Indonesia, Egypt and China, noting that Wang had received the vaccine and is still “in good health and able to travel to places.”
“For the need to defend our nation and protect our people from this deadly epidemic, we cannot wait any longer,” Hun Sen said in a message Published Friday in a cabinet newsletter. “We return to what I said last time about accepting only vaccines recognized by the World Health Organisation.”
Because they lack regulatory agencies with the capacity to research scientific data, many developing countries have traditionally relied on the WHO’s list of approved vaccines to know what injections they can allow for topical vaccinations.
At the end of 2020, the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE vaccine was the first and so far only shot to be administered emergency validation from WHO since the outbreak started a year ago. Because there are no low-income countries producing their own vaccines, wealthier countries have 85% of Pfizer’s vaccine and all Moderna Inc.’s, according to London-based research firm Airfinity Ltd.
Although China has pledged to support the WHO’s efforts, the vaccines are not among the vaccines obtained by Covax. A Sinovac spokesperson said the company has begun submitting data to WHO for pre-qualification of its coronavirus vaccine, known as CoronaVac. A group of WHO inspectors have also traveled to China and will inspect manufacturing facilities after completing quarantine, the spokesman said.
Covax still plans to distribute 2 billion doses worldwide by the end of this year, with enough to protect 3% of the population in all participating countries by July, according to an email response to questions. The facility has said it will consider purchasing any candidate vaccine that meets WHO global standards.
Of the 11 candidates it can tap into for distribution, two – The photo from Moderna Inc. and those developed by AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford – are ready for rollout and are managed in countries such as the US and UK. It is unclear why Covax has not yet started distributing those vaccines.
Tedros’s statements criticizing companies for prioritizing rich countries where they can make the most profit indicate that the global health organization sees the slowdown as coming from the companies.
AstraZeneca said on Dec. 30 it was seeking a green light from WHO, known as the Body’s Emergency Use Listing, “for an accelerated path to vaccine availability in low- and middle-income countries.” A company spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment about what stage the trial is in.
Uneven distribution
High-income countries have secured 85% of Pfizer’s vaccine and all modernas
Source: Airfinity
Covax’s rollout could begin as early as February pending favorable regulatory outcomes and the readiness of health and national regulatory systems in individual participating economies, said Iryna Mazur, a spokesperson for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, who co-leads Covax.
Thailand bought 2 million doses of Sinovac, and China pledged to donate a total of 800,000 doses the Philippines and Myanmar during Wang’s diplomatic push last week.
On a visit to Manila, Wang garnered praise from Filipino officials for committing to complete China-funded infrastructure projects, including a $ 400 million bridge and a $ 940 million freight rail project.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte this week rebuked a group of senators who were scrutinizing the government’s plans to buy Sinovac after previously threatening to end a visiting troop deal with the US if this failed. immediately deliver at least 20 million vaccines. “No vaccine, no stay here,” Duterte said of the military deal last month – a threat he has previously expressed without taking action.
“Coronavirus vaccines have clearly become a political football in the growing cold war between the US and China,” said Paul Chambers of Naresuan University’s Center of Asean Community Studies, who has been researching geopolitics in Southeast Asia for about two decades. “The massive delay in the launch of Covax is just the opportunity China is using to start and expand its supply of Sinovac to developing countries.”
– With the assistance of Philip Heijmans, Dong Lyu, Colum Murphy and Suzi Ring
(Updates with Blinken’s comments in sixth paragraph.)