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For months now, public health experts have worried about the phenomenon of ‘vaccine nationalism’ – countries loudly touting their own efforts to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, sometimes at the expense of cooperation and coordination global.
How does Britain’s world’s first approval on Wednesday of a rigorously tested vaccine, with large-scale inoculations to begin next week, fit into this debate?
While it is normal and expected for world leaders to prioritize the interests of their own country, analysts say vaccine nationalism can become dangerous when public health decisions are driven by national political concerns or when a product prized – inoculation against a deadly disease – is used as a geostrategic weapon.
“Vaccine nationalism will prolong the pandemic, not shorten it,” World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a September briefing in Geneva as the race to develop and test a vaccine was still in progress.
The Rand Corp. warned in a report this year that vaccine nationalism – including practices such as countries pushing for early access to a vaccine supply or hoarding of key components – could cost the global economy up to $ 1.2 trillion per year if it results in unequal allocation. .
Global COVID-19-related deaths approached 1.5 million and global coronavirus infections numbered more than 64.3 million as of Wednesday, according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University.
The emergency approval by UK regulators of a vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and Germany BioNTech has been hailed as a long-awaited sign of hope in a country that has been hammered by COVID-19. Nearly 60,000 Britons have died, reflecting one of the highest per capita death rates in Europe, and infections are approaching 1.7 million.
“Fantastic news,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said of the regulatory approval, excited about the “organic jiujitsu” being done by scientists. The 56-year-old prime minister, who suffered a fatal episode of COVID-19 this year, has come under heavy criticism for his handling of the coronavirus crisis.
British health officials said the country would start receiving the first shipment of 800,000 doses from Belgium, where the vaccine is made, within days and two-step mass inoculations would begin almost immediately. As planned in the United States, priority will be given to health workers and the most vulnerable, including residents of nursing homes.
But even with a rapid deployment, the UK, like the US, is heading into a winter of potentially suffering. With the workload already huge, the next few months are expected to result in thousands more deaths, add to an already overburdened healthcare system and intensify economic hardship.
Although Britain’s opposition Labor Party expressed relief at the approval announcement, it drew a cold response from the European Union. In an unusually brief statement, the bloc’s medicines regulator, the Brussels-based European Medicines Agency – which sifts through the same data used by Britain – suggested it was exercising due diligence and that the Johnson government could have put speed ahead of security in an offer to restart the process.
Britain is embroiled in tense talks with the EU-27 over its messy and prolonged departure from the bloc, which was approved by national referendum in 2016. Brexit officially took place a year ago, but a one-year transition period is heading towards an end with deep divisions remaining.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock angered EU officials by suggesting that the break with the EU had fostered a more agile UK approach to regulatory approval, which resulted in Wednesday’s announcement. Another official, Business Secretary Alok Sharma, said the vaccine go-ahead marked “the day the UK led humanity’s charge against this disease”.
It was too much for German Ambassador to Britain Andreas Michaelis, who said regulatory approval was not a “national story” of success. On Twitter, he questioned why it was “so difficult to recognize this important step forward as a great international effort and success”.
The British announcement comes as Johnson maneuvers to find a foothold with President-elect Joe Biden, after the Prime Minister forges what could be the closest friendship with President Trump through the leader of a major Western democracy . Biden has previously signaled a sharp break with Trump over coronavirus policy, including plans to immediately reverse the president’s withdrawal from the WHO.
The Trump administration, seemingly unfazed by Britain being the first to approve a pioneering vaccine in the United States, hailed the move as a positive sign for the approval and deployment of the vaccine in the United States, for which Trump seeks to claim credit for his tenure. draws to a close.
“To the American people, this should be very reassuring: an independent regulatory authority in another country has found this vaccine safe and effective to use,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in an interview on Fox. Business.
In the United States, an emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the Food and Drug Administration could follow a December 10 meeting of a panel of outside advisers, whose recommendation is often used as a guideline . But some experts say even with approval, FDA approval could take weeks.
So far, no government has authorized a rigorously tested vaccine. Russia and China have made progress with such clearings despite the absence of large-scale testing of the effectiveness of their own vaccine.
And Russian President Vladimir Putin has this year put a resolutely nationalist stamp on the deployment of a vaccine called Sputnik V, invoking the name of the artificial satellite whose launch in 1957 sparked a space race with the United States.
Tens of thousands of Russians have already received the vaccine, and Putin said on Wednesday that a new surge would begin later this month targeting doctors and teachers.
Britain, with a population of 67 million, faces daunting logistical challenges to accelerate its deployment. These will be new technologies for storing the vaccine at ultra-low temperatures, and the two doses should be administered 21 days apart.
Only around four dozen UK hospitals will initially be allowed to administer the injections. Although the manufacturers of the vaccine have not reported any serious side effects, it is still unclear whether asymptomatic people who have been inoculated can still spread the disease. And the duration of protection is not yet known.
Like Trump, Johnson may face a large contingent of compatriots who refuse to be vaccinated because they don’t trust the government or public health experts. The British leader said he would “strongly urge” people to get vaccinated, but said “it is not part of our culture or our ambition in this country to make vaccines compulsory.”
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