During the flu pandemic of 2009, high-income nations were criticised for hoarding vaccine doses. Will 鈥溾�� raise its ugly head again?
Some world leaders seem to have learned the lessons of 2009, says Gavin Yamey at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. 鈥淭here is clearly enormous political will that when vaccines are developed, rich countries don鈥檛 monopolise them,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e鈥檝e heard world leaders like Emmanuel Macron saying that vaccines should be a 鈥榞lobal public good鈥�. That is significant because underlying it is a realisation, at the very highest levels, that without global herd immunity it鈥檚 going to be very difficult to bring this pandemic to an end.鈥�
The World 91色情片 Organization (WHO) emphasises the need for 鈥渆quitable and fair global allocation鈥�, and a global coalition called COVAX is working to ensure that this happens. Countries that sign up then pool resources so that if one vaccine succeeds, all can have it. It is effectively an insurance policy, says Yamey.
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At the time of writing, 170 countries with a combined population of 4.5 billion have including the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland. The poorest 92 of these countries will get a vaccine for free.
Meanwhile, the teams behind the UK鈥檚 leading vaccine candidates at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London have pledged to make their vaccines available on a not-for-profit basis.
But the nationalist drumbeat is growing. Neither the US nor China has yet publicly declared an interest in COVAX. And several countries have signed deals with firms to buy disproportionate amounts of vaccine. 鈥淚t is already obvious that countries that have contributed significantly to the funding of the research will want to have the first pick at the crop,鈥� says Beate Kampmann, director of the Vaccine Centre at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. For example, the UK government has of the Oxford vaccine, which is 5 per cent of the projected world supply for a country with less than 1 per cent of the global population.
鈥淲ithout global herd immunity, it鈥檚 going to be difficult to bring this pandemic to an end鈥�
The US has signed a deal to buy 350 million doses of the Oxford vaccine, 17.5 per cent of global supply for a country with 4 per cent of its population. US president Donald Trump has also set up an explicitly nationalist vaccine development programme called
鈥淭here is no such thing as a British or Chinese or American vaccine, any vaccine must be a global public good,鈥� says Yamey. 鈥淭he billion-dollar question is, are these deals a threat to the global fair distribution of vaccine? My answer is, they are.鈥�
Meanwhile, Russia announced this week that it has become the first country to approve a vaccine. However, according to the WHO, the vaccine, being developed by the Gamaleya Institute in Moscow, is only in early stage trials raising concerns that it is being used before it is known to be safe.
