Hira Bahadur Thapa

CORONAVIRUS pandemic is ravaging the poorer countries more than the rich ones. The only way to end the COVID-19 pandemic is to immunise enough people worldwide. But growing inequity in global access to vaccines is significantly impeding the path to immunisation. Available data reveal the sharp contrast between the percent of populations receiving inoculation in wealthy and middle and low-income countries. If the vaccination figures in India, the most affected country of 1.4 billion people, are any guide, there is a huge gap in the administration of jabs to the people.
In Nepal, where vaccination drive is halted with stocks depleted already, the situation is no less dire. In the last few weeks infection and fatality rates are surpassing previous records. Despite government’s sincere intentions to procure vaccines from abroad to resume vaccination, no supplies are assured as yet. This is why Prime Minister KP Oli has observed that “we have a history of hardship and struggle, but this pandemic is pushing us even to our limits” while appealing for international cooperation.
Vaccine production has slowed. Woefully, over-stocking of home-grown vaccines by some rich country has also abetted the shortage. Production rate is low. By April 1.2 billion doses were produced. Health experts predict that at this rate of vaccine production, hundreds of millions of people in developing countries will remain unimmunised at least until 2023.

Monopolies
The production issue is hampering the effectiveness of global partnership in helping the low resourced countries to access vaccines at moderate prices. To scale up the vaccine production, the monopolies of pharmaceutical companies need to be suspended albeit temporarily. Such monopolies are protected by World Trade Organisation’s agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
Since last October debate has been ignited about the need for temporary suspension of patent rights of the COVID-19 vaccines protected under the international trade agreement. A proposal for patent waivers on vaccines, medical tools including the personal protection equipment, therapeutic treatments, and testing kits was submitted to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) by India and South Africa. But the same has been opposed by some countries arguing that patent waivers would disincentivize research and innovation.
But the May 6 decision of the US government to back up the waiver proposal during the WTO council meeting has raised hopes that an agreement on the temporary and limited suspension of protection provisions related to COVID-19 vaccines would be reached among WTO members. Such collaboration among patent holding companies played a crucial role in the 1990s when the world was devastated by HIV/AIDS. In absence of generic versions of antiretrovirals made possible by patent suspension, the developing countries would not have found the HIV/AIDS treatment affordable.
The American support for waiver was influenced by the petitions of about four hundred eminent people including Nobel Laureates, former Heads of State and US legislators. Although belated the position of the US government to reverse its previous opposition to waiver vindicates Biden administration’s stand that it is sensitive to global health crisis.
Despite the fact that the scarcity of COVID-19 vaccines across the developing world is largely the result of efforts by the manufacturers to maintain their monopoly control and profits, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America has decried the waiver suspension move as empty promise. It contends that short-term suspension of patent protection does not really address the shortage of vaccines and getting more people vaccinated requires the tackling of distributional challenges and the availability of raw materials.
Vaccine makers project that 12 billion doses will become available by the end of 2021, and roughly 11 billion doses would vaccinate 70 percent of the world’s population - enough to pass estimated thresholds of herd immunity.
Looking at inoculation data in low-income countries, which is just 0.2 per cent of all vaccine shots, it is difficult to agree with the projections of drug makers. As of May 4, less than 8 per cent of the world’s population had received even one dose of any COVID-19 vaccine, while just 10 rich countries accounted for 80 per cent of all vaccinations. In Nepal around 2 million people have been administered one dose of vaccine so far and with supply uncertainty it is unpredictable as to how long those people have to wait for their final second dose.
In consideration of this reality one can hardly disagree with the statement that drug manufacturers’ patents have precipitated pernicious form of vaccine apartheid, which has led to mostly self-created global shortage of doses. Putting profits before life is just unconscionable. The global scarcity of vaccines is mostly artificial because profits have been the guiding principle behind drug makers’ penchant for monopoly in production. Vaccine production has been stymied by their refusal to share knowledge and technology.

Technology-sharing
Frustratingly, not one originator has shared the technologies with poor countries through the World Health Organisation’s voluntary COVID-19 Technology Access Pool. Waiver would make a real difference. The market confirms this as seen in the falling stock prices of leading COVID-19 vaccine makers on the day when the US Trade Representative Catherine Tai made the statement in support of waiver before the WTO council meeting. She said, “This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures”.
As WTO decisions are made by consensus other holdouts of waiver suspension will have to go along with the US position for the Indian and South African proposal to reach fruition. All need to realise that fighting global pandemic is an act of moral imperative more than anything else. Corporate greed should not be allowed to prolong the pandemic.

(Thapa was Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister in 2008-09. Thapahira17@gmail.com)