The United States is under increasing pressure to share doses of Covid-19 vaccine with less wealthy nations, as advocates call for the prevention of an emerging “vaccine apartheid” and point to the strategic and diplomatic importance of sharing essential drugs.
Calls to share vaccine doses have risen this week after the Biden administration announced an additional purchase of 100 million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The U.S. government has bought enough doses of vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson to vaccinate 500 million people, almost the entire eligible population twice.
The administration also owns the rights to 100 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine. The vaccine has not been licensed in the United States, but is licensed for use elsewhere in the world. A company spokesman said AstraZeneca called on the U.S. to give “reflective consideration” to vaccine donation elsewhere.
“I do it because, in this war effort, we need maximum flexibility,” Biden said at a White House briefing announcing the purchase this week. “There is always the possibility of encountering unexpected challenges.”
On Friday, Biden and leaders from Japan, Australia and India, an informal working group known as the Quad, announced they would work to increase manufacturing capacity, with the goal of sending doses of 1 billion Covid vaccines -19 in Asian and Pacific island countries. 2022.
But Biden administration officials have continued to resist sending doses of vaccines stored abroad, saying it is part of a plan that must be “over-prepared and over-supplied.” in the event that emerging Covid-19 variants or decreasing immunity require reinforcing shots.
“We want to be part of the worldwide effort to vaccinate people around the world in various countries,” said Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, who cited the $ 2 million commitment to Covax, the global effort to share Vaccines against covid19.
However, he said that “the first priority and focus of the president is to make sure the American people are vaccinated. And once we get to that point, we will have a debate about what comes next.”
The administration strategy is also a protection against any possible interruption of manufacturing and can provide a supply of vaccines for children, if and when clinical trials show that they are safe for use in children under 16 years of age. .
The Biden administration intends to remove all eligibility requirements for the vaccine by May 1 and expects to vaccinate all 267 million eligible Americans before the July 4 vacation. More than 530,000 Americans have died after contracting the virus, a number the administration often cites when defending its reliance on vaccine launches.
“As I told you before, I have a card in my pocket with the number of Americans who have died since Covid to date,” Biden said in an early-morning speech on Thursday. “It’s at the back of my schedule. At present, the total death toll in America: 527,726. That means more deaths than in World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War and 9/11 together. ”
However, countries such as China and Russia have agreed to share vaccines to gain a strategic advantage. China’s vaccine manufacturers have promised half a million doses in 45 countries, according to an Associated Press account.
“We may be overtaken by others who are more willing to share, even if they do so for cynical reasons,” Ivo H Daalder, a former NATO ambassador and president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said in New York. Time. “I think countries will remember who was there for us when we needed them.”
A recent World Bank analysis found that 82% of high-income countries have started getting vaccinated, compared to 3% of low-income countries. According to a January forecast by the Economist Intelligence Unit, middle-income countries are likely to massively vaccinate their populations by the end of 2022, but 84 of the world’s poorest nations are unlikely to complete mass vaccination campaigns until at least 2024 and that they never reach the immunity of the flock. .
“It will define the global economy, the global political landscape, travel, pretty much everything,” said Agathe Demarais, the unit’s forecast director, at the time of the report’s release.
Proponents have described the gap in access to vaccines between rich and poor countries as a potential “vaccine apartheid.” Many do he also said not sharing vaccines threatens to repeat the failures of the HIV / AIDS epidemic.
“A first-time approach may serve short-term political interests, but it is self-defeating and will lead to a prolonged recovery, as trade and travel will continue to suffer,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote in The Guardian.
“The threat is clear: as long as the virus spreads anywhere, it has more chances to mutate and can undermine the effectiveness of vaccines everywhere. We could end up in first place,” he said.
Ghebreyesus is among the advocates who have called on pharmaceutical companies to relinquish intellectual property rights granted by the World Trade Organization. The hope is that the temporary waiver of patents will allow for widespread vaccine manufacturing.
The petition would waive certain rights guaranteed by the so-called TRIPS agreement. The issue is before the WTO, which is expected to discuss the petition twice at the next April meetings. The petition is largely supported by lower-income countries and opposed by high-income countries.
“We have to make sure that in the end we deliver,” said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director general of the WTO. In this way, he said, “the millions of people who are waiting for us without breathing know that we are working on concrete solutions.”