I Run the W.H.O., and I Know That Rich Countries Must Make a Choice
> By Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
> Dr. Tedros is the director general of the World Health Organization.
And you ruin the W.H.O. by not telling the truth, and nothing but the truth, from the very beginning.
If they keep their vaccine promises, the pandemic can end.
If you let the truth out in the beginning, the pandemic would not have started.
Almost one billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered around the world, and yet the weekly number of cases hit a record high last week, and deaths are climbing, on pace to eclipse 2020’s grim tally. How can this be? Weren’t vaccines supposed to douse the flames of the pandemic?
Yes, the vaccines are dousing the flames of the most serious burned countries: U.S.A., U.K. and India.
Yes, and they are. But here’s the thing about an inferno: If you hose only one part of it, the rest will keep burning.
You have to suppress the heart of the flame first.
Many countries all over the world are facing a severe crisis, with high transmission and intensive care units overflowing with patients and running short on essential supplies, like oxygen.
There is no restrictions on distribution of oxygen. It's FREE FREE FREE.
Why is this happening? For several reasons: The rise of more transmissible variants, the inconsistent application and premature easing of public health measures like mask mandates and physical distancing, populations that are understandably weary of adhering to those measures and the inequitable distribution of vaccines.
Our goal is to suppress the variants in U.S.A., U.K, and India.
Scientists developed several vaccines for Covid-19 in record time. Yet of the more than 890 million vaccine doses that have been administered globally, more than 81 percent have been given in high- and upper-middle-income countries. Low-income countries have received just 0.3 percent.
And more than half of the serious cases are in U.S.A, U.K. and India. They are the major producers as well as consumers of vaccines.
This problem is sadly predictable. When the H.I.V. epidemic erupted in the 1980s, lifesaving antiretrovirals were developed rapidly, and yet a decade passed before they became available in sub-Saharan Africa.
There are many issues and difficulties in making and testing vaccines. The global production capabilities are limited, whether or not there are IP restrictions.
A year ago, the World Health Organization and many global health partners came together in an effort to avoid history repeating. The Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, including the vaccine sharing initiative Covax, was begun to ensure the most equitable possible distribution of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics for Covid-19.
Opinion Conversation Questions surrounding the Covid-19 vaccine and its rollout.
The first and utmost responsibilities of the W.H.O is to avoid something like this pandemic to spread in the first place. However, if the W.H.O is politicize and withholding information in the beginning, and leading to spreading of the pandemic later. W.H.O is not doing it's job and it's existent is questionable.
When is it still important to wear a face mask? Three health experts address readers’ questions about mask guidelines. What can I do once I'm vaccinated? Tara Haelle, a science journalist, argues that even after you're vaccinated, "you will need to do your own risk assessment." What can I do while my children are still unvaccinated? David Leonhardt writes about the difficult safety calculations families will face. When can we declare the pandemic over? Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics, writes that some danger will still exist when things return to “normal.”
> The concept was crystal clear: At a time when no one knew which vaccines would prove effective in clinical trials, Covax was designed to share the huge inherent risks of vaccine development, and to offer a mechanism for pooled procurement and equitable rollout.
> While scientists toiled in laboratories, the W.H.O. and partners set standards, facilitated trials, raised funds, tracked manufacturing progress and worked with countries to prepare for rollout.
and ignoring the critical job of tracking and preventing early pandemic.
Countries at all income levels, manufacturers and others in the private sector committed to participate.
No, they refuse to participate in the political organization.
But many of the same wealthy countries that were publicly expressing support for Covax were in parallel preordering the same vaccines on which Covax was relying.
It's free market, not communistic market.
In January, I issued a global challenge to see vaccination underway in all countries within the first 100 days of the year. This was an eminently achievable goal.
> By April 10 — the 100th day — we had come close to achieving it: All but 26 countries had started vaccination, and of those, 12 were about to start, leaving 14 countries that had either not requested vaccines through Covax or were not ready to start vaccinating.
> But the amount of vaccines delivered has been totally insufficient. As of Thursday, Covax has distributed 43 million doses of vaccine to 119 countries — covering just 0.5 percent of their combined population of more than four billion.
The U.S. will donate upward of 80 millions doses to other countries. However, monthly productions are limited to 400 to 500 millions doses. It's simply not possible to make more.
Since the ACT Accelerator’s birth a year ago, many of the world’s biggest economies have given strong support to Covax politically and financially, but they have also undermined it in other ways.
The U.S. will donate 4 billions to Covax, which is large and more than the fair share.
First, vaccine nationalism has weakened Covax, with a handful of rich countries gobbling up the anticipated supply as manufacturers sell to the highest bidder, while the rest of the world scrambles for the scraps. Some countries have placed orders for enough doses to vaccinate their entire population several times over, promising to share only after they have used everything they need, perpetuating the pattern of patronage that keeps the world’s have-nots exactly where they are.
The excess doses are being donated to other countries. It takes time to work out the logistic.
Second, vaccine diplomacy has undermined Covax as countries with vaccines make bilateral donations for reasons that have more to do with geopolitical goals than public health. This inevitably leaves countries with the least political clout as wallflowers at the vaccine ball.
It doesn't help that the countries asking for help are also bad-mouthing the donators, and calling them the western devil.
Third, vaccine hesitancy has hampered the rollout of vaccines, through the same combination of myth and misinformation that has enabled measles to resurge around the world. Reports of very rare side effects linked to some vaccines have spurred countries with other options to cast some aside. This includes vaccines that many of the world’s low-income nations were relying on but now question. Let’s be clear: While safety is paramount and we pay careful attention to any signs of adverse events, the shots’ benefits vastly outweigh the risks for all four vaccines with W.H.O. emergency use listing.
It doesn't help for the W.H.O to suggest withholding vaccination for children, in order to donate excess doses to other adults. Children are just as vulnerable as adult. Prioritizing age group for pure political agenda undermines the reasoning.
And fourth, a new trend — let’s call it vaccine euphoria — is undermining hard-won gains as some countries relax public health measures too quickly and some people assume that vaccines have ended the pandemic, at least where they live.
> It doesn’t have to be this way. Scarcity drives inequity and puts the global recovery at risk. The longer this coronavirus circulates anywhere, the longer global trade and travel will be disrupted, and the higher the chances that a variant could emerge that renders vaccines less effective. That’s just what viruses do.
> We face the very real possibility of affluent countries administering variant-blocking boosters to already vaccinated people when many countries will still be scrounging for enough vaccines to cover their most-at-risk groups.
No, this can be done in parallel. Both original doses and boosters will be produced. The critical matter is to maintain the IP and market, so there are incentive for companies to continue research and production.
This is unacceptable. Analysts predict vaccines will generate huge revenues for manufacturers. Meanwhile, the ACT Accelerator is still $19 billion short of the funds it needs to expand access not just to vaccines but also to diagnostics and treatments like oxygen. But even if we had all the funds we need, money doesn’t help if there are no vaccines to buy.
Huge revenue as well as huge cost of expansion in equipments, parts and labours.
The solution is threefold: We need the countries and companies that control the global supply to share financially, to share their doses with Covax immediately and to share their know-how to urgently and massively scale up the production and equitable distribution of vaccines.
If you kill these companies with communistic ideal and confiscate their IP, there will not be anyone left for the next pandemic. We would rather leave the free market for innovations.
One way to do this is through voluntary licensing with technology transfer, in which a company that owns the patents on a vaccine licenses another manufacturer to produce its shots, usually for a fee. Some companies have done this on a bilateral basis. But such agreements tend to be exclusive and nontransparent, compromising equitable access.
The invisible hand will choke out innovation and vaccines would not have happened.
A more transparent method is for companies to share licenses through the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool, a globally coordinated mechanism proposed by Costa Rica and started by the W.H.O. last year.
This is same as confiscating companies IP without compensation.
Another option, proposed by South Africa and India, is to waive intellectual property rights on Covid-19 products through a World Trade Organization agreement that would level the playing field and give countries more leverage in their discussions with companies. Governments could drive greater sharing of intellectual property by offering incentives to companies to do it.
This would drive countries like the U.S. to simply leave the W.T.O. altogether.
If this is not a time to take those actions, it’s hard to fathom when that would be.
We need to think twice and triple before making such drastic measures.
In combination with proven public health measures, we have all the tools to tame this pandemic everywhere in a matter of months. It comes d own to a simple choice: to share or not to share.
To share, but with equitable and fair compensation for their hard work, in accord with fair rules and laws. Blanket confiscation is not the solution.
Whether or not we do is not a test of science, financial muscle or industrial prowess; it’s a test of character.
It's a test of FREE market principle.