VACCINE nationalism has distorted the supply and use of vaccines in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony. The miner made the remarks while delivering a speech to the World Ethics in Business Forum on Wednesday, during a virtual conference held on World Health Day, under the theme “changing paradigms in a pandemic world”. Dr. Anthony is optimistic that forums such as the World Business Ethics Forum would help initiate a shift from vaccine nationalism to vaccine equity.
In his address, he noted that while pandemics are nothing new to the world, the COVID-19 pandemic was different from previous pandemics due mainly to global connectivity, which led to the spread of the virus from country to country. country in a short time. “The effects of the pandemic were further exacerbated by the inaccurate information, which is constantly swirling around social media creating fear and distrust,” he said. He elaborated that, based on the austerity of the measures implemented to curb the spread of the virus and the effectiveness of the use of those measures, despite the ‘global connectivity’, different countries have uniquely responded and coped with the pandemic.
“The crisis is far from over, as the emergence of new variants, loosening some of the earlier public measures, and other factors has now created a third global wave and, in others, a fourth wave of rising cases and deaths , ‘he said. “On the economic side, securing people’s livelihoods has become quite challenging; many businesses have gone under. Many people have lost their jobs, and there is no safety net to prevent the most vulnerable from slipping into further poverty, ”he added.
A LOT OF HOPE
Dr. noted that Anthony, in order to exit the pandemic and return to “normalcy”, much hope has been given to vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics, with vaccines being the only mechanism that can help to achieve herd immunity and restore some normality. “Unfortunately, vaccine nationalism has distorted the supply and use of vaccines,” said the Health Minister. In making his assertion, he referred to an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, entitled “from vaccine nationalism to vaccine equity” which states “Vaccine distribution is non-existent in many of the poorest countries, and experts predict that 80 per cent of the population in a low resource setting will not receive a vaccine this year ”.
“This year’s World Health Day theme is building a fairer and healthier world. To do that, we need to close the vaccine gap between rich and developing countries urgently, ”said Dr. Anthony told the forum. He noted that failure to do so will have a very likely consequence for the emergence of virus variants, redefinitions, and new types of differentiation between vaccinated and non-vaccinated. He listed several concrete described measures that could be taken to make a difference regarding vaccine equity, namely rapid approval and Emergency Use Lists of vaccines by the World Health Organization; COVAX needs to go beyond 20 percent for 2021; and improving the logistics of moving vaccines properly.
It also recommended that richer countries that have obtained surplus vaccines should share with poorer countries; therapeutics that obtain an urgent use authorization and have passed the clinical trials should be shared with poorer countries to improve treatment options and a global system to track variants. “Hopefully organizations like the World Ethics Forum for Business Ethics would help shift the general aspect of vaccine nationalism to vaccine equity, where all countries can race to herd immunity in the shortest possible time,” said Dr. Anthony.