SHORTAGE OF, OR HIJACK OF COVID VACCINE?
To date, worldwide over one hundred and fifty-five million people have been affected by the coronavirus and over 3.2 million have died of the scourge. All this in a period of around seventeen months, and the virus is spreading faster than before.
On May 5 US President Biden expressed his support for a patent waiver on Covid vaccines as a means of boosting production and distribution worldwide. The US trade representative to World Trade Organization has however warned that making this a reality will take time.
Not unexpectedly the pharmaceutical giants are strongly opposed to the waiver, with or without compensation. According to media reports, the governments in the UK and Europe too opposed the proposal.
The proposal itself was first introduced by India last year, at a time it was feared that low- and middleincome countries were being left out, after wealthy nations reached deals with vaccine makers.
World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom emphasized that normal rules of business that protect the profits of vaccine manufacturers will have to be set aside if that is what it takes to ensure everybody is immunized against the coronavirus.
At that time global experts believed, India, the largest manufacturer of low-cost vaccines in the world, would be the saviour of poorer countries who had not the ability to make advance purchases from the pharmaceutical giants who control, limit and cost the much needed vaccines.
Of the five of vaccines developed so far in the west, at least three companies -Johnson & Johnson, Oxford Astrazeneca, and Covax -licensed their technologies to Indian manufacturers as far back as last year. The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) licensed its technology for the Sputnik V vaccine to Hyderabad-based Dr. Reddy’s and the Indian government, in partnership with Bharat Biotech, has developed the vaccine Covaxin.
There should therefore, in reality be no shortage of vaccines for poorer nations. Indian premier Modi speaking at the World Economic Forum in January 2021 said India had beaten the pandemic and would save other countries with its vaccine exports.
It was no idle boast. COVAX, a global facility aimed at equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines, had contracted with the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, for at least 200 million doses.
SII was held in such esteem, the Gates Foundation provided $300 million of “at-risk funding” to SII through Gavi, one of the COVAX coordinators, to help the institute scale up its facilities to ensure no country would be left behind when it comes to availability of Covid-19 vaccine.”
There should therefore, theoretically be no short supply of Covid vaccines. Unfortunately, today, this is far from the reality. India itself is badly hit by the virus with a daily case-load of over 400,000 patients. The total number of persons contracting the disease in India reached over 21.1 million on the 6th of this month and the total number of fatalities had rose to 230,168.
When the full force of the second wave of the pandemic hit India, it reacted by stopping exports of vaccines and redirected them to meet its own needs. On April 7, CEO of the Serum Institute of India (one of the four Indian pharmaceutical giants manufacturing Covid vaccines) said the institute hoped to resume exports within two months.
However given the explosion of cases in India, it appears unlikely the SII will be allowed to export the vaccine before a majority of Indian citizens are vaccinated.
The reality is that after taking millions of dollars in international funding and advance payment for provision vaccines to the most poverty-stricken countries in the world, India is now using allocated funds and pre-paid stocks to meet her own needs.
With Bill and Melinda Gates now focused on the division of their billions of dollars worth assets ranging from real estate, to palatial homes, to private aircraft and yachts and God knows how many other assets including their children, it does not seem probable they will pursue the manner their donation $300 million is used by the SII.
What is worse is that the World Health Organisation a co-partner and funder of the COVAX facility does not seem to be complaining about India’s ‘Vaccine Grab’.
The action of the Indian pharmaceutical giants is tantamount to stealing vaccines meant for poorer countries. It tarnishes the image India has of providing low-cost vaccines to low income countries.