US – Cuba normalization could increase production of COVID-19 vaccines
By Sir Ronald Sanders
Kaieteur News – If US President Joe Biden eases the trade ban against Cuba, one benefit for developing countries, including the Caribbean, could be greater access to coronavirus vaccines at an affordable price.
Cuban scientists have been working on four vaccine candidates to combat the virus. They believe their most successful candidate, Sovereign 2, will begin the final phase of testing next month.
Vincent Verez, one of the leading scientists on the Cuban team, says that clinical trials, in two trial phases so far, have revealed that Sovereign 2 is “very safe with very few adverse effects.”
The scientific team claims that the production of the coronavirus vaccine has been made more difficult by the Cuban sanctions. They were unable to purchase all the equipment and raw materials they needed, including spectrometers used to control quality. However, their work continues. They have used a 20-year-old spectrometer that is still powerful enough to analyze the vaccine.
Cuba’s biotechnology sector is well developed; made eight vaccines (for other diseases) given to children in the country and exported to more than 30 countries. A successful Cuba coronavirus vaccine would help break global market control by the big pharmaceutical companies in the US and Europe.
Cuba’s geographical location in the Caribbean and its willingness to share a successful vaccine with the developing world would ease the pressure on CARICOM countries, which face a twin-pronged vaccination problem. The first is sourcing vaccines produced by the big pharmaceutical companies especially Pfizer and Moderna, and the second getting better prices.
CARICOM countries have been unable to vaccinate more than one percent of their people despite herculean efforts by governments to secure vaccines. The COVAX facility, set up by the World Health Organization, to negotiate supply and price with the major vaccine suppliers, has encountered major obstacles and has not introduced any of the vaccines that Caribbean countries have already pay for them. Delivery is expected soon, but will be less than 10 per cent of the quantities ordered.
The generosity of the Indian government in giving 570,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines to CARICOM countries has helped them begin the vaccination program. But to reach the point of vaccinating 80 percent of their populations for herd immunity, more vaccines need to be accessed at lesser prices than the suppliers offer.
Given that the world’s richest countries have pre-ordered and paid for supplies, the big pharmaceutical companies are under no pressure to reduce prices, or increase productivity, even as global demand increases fast. Pfizer expects about $ 15 billion in revenue this year from its COVID-19 vaccine developed with BioNTech.
Moreover, country governments, where major producers of the vaccines are, have implemented measures, limiting exports of COVID-19 vaccines, citing intellectual property rights. Pfizer and Moderna are claiming the rights to a great deal of intellectual property that will be useful, if not necessary, for others to develop vaccines in the future.
Unfortunately, the governments of the countries where Pfizer and Moderna are located, have also spurred urges to facilitate such exports. Human rights, including the right to life and health, were disregarded.
For these reasons, it would be beneficial for the Caribbean, if the most promising of the four vaccines that Cuba develops could secure World Health Organization (WHO) authorization after successful testing.
While campaigning for the United States Presidency, Joe Biden vowed to overturn sanctions imposed on Cuba by former President Donald Trump in his attempts to conquer Florida, where a large number of Cuban exiles are resident.
One of the most baseless measures against Cuba is to list him, in the last days of the Trump administration, as a patron of terrorism. Critics of this listing have correctly pointed out that it is unjust and serves no purpose other than to further address the Cuban economy. More specifically, it will block deals between Cuba and other countries. Cuba’s nearest neighbor governments, including CARICOM, have called for its reversal.
About 20 churches and religious organizations in the US also sent a letter on February 17, to President Biden requesting that the decision to include Cuba on the list of terror-sponsoring States be revoked.
At the same time, others, including the new Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez, continue to demand harder and harder measures against Cuba. The latter represents opposition, most of which want nothing less than the immediate collapse of the Cuban government.
President Biden’s intuition on normalizing US relations with Cuba is based on the successful efforts of the Barack Obama administration of which he was Vice President. Nothing good comes from pursuing an unsuccessful failed policy that no one wants, except for disaffected Cuban-American exiles – a few of whom are in the US Congress.
(The author is Antigua and Barbuda Ambassador to the United States and the American Provincial Institute. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and Massey College at the University of Toronto. The views expressed are entirely his own )
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