Vaccine nationalism: An issue of concern

For
months now, public health experts have chafed about vaccine nationalism- when a
country manages to secure doses of vaccines for its own citizens and prioritises
its own domestic markets before they are made available in other countries.

For
example, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the European Union
have spent tens of billions of dollars on deals with vaccine front runners such
as Pfizer Inc, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca Plc even before their
effectiveness is proven.

The
concerns arise when these advance agreements are probably to make the vaccine
unattainable to large parts of the world that do not have the money to receive
and vaccinate their native population.

The major
drawback of vaccine nationalism is that it puts countries with fewer resources
and bargaining power at a disadvantage. Thus, if countries with a large number
of cases lag in obtaining the vaccine, the disease will continue to disrupt
global supply chains and, as a result, economies around the world.

Like
Trump, Johnson may face a sizable contingent of compatriots who refuse to get a
vaccine because they do not trust the government or public health experts. The
British leader said he would “strongly urge” people to get vaccinated, but said
it is “no part of our culture or our ambition in this country to make vaccines
mandatory.”

Even
though vaccine nationalism runs against global public health principles, there
are no provisions in international laws that prevent pre-purchase agreements.

Aforementioned
incident

There
have been precedents: In 2009, following an outbreak of H1N1 influenza, or
swine flu, rich countries had hoarded vaccines in a way similar to the
pre-booking happening now. As a result, many countries in Africa had no access
to these vaccines for months. The US and some European countries finally agreed
to release 10% of their stocks for other countries, but only after it had
become evident that they did not need the vaccines for themselves any longer.

Similarly,
anti-retroviral drugs for the treatment of HIV patients were unavailable in
Africa, the worst affected region, for several years after being developed in
the 1990s.

Scientists
and experts have been maintaining that such a strategy might not work out very
well even for the countries that can stock up on the vaccines. If some parts of
the world continue to reel under the epidemic because of a lack of access to
the vaccine, it would keep the virus in circulation for much longer than it
would otherwise have been. That would mean that other countries too would
remain at risk, at least economically, because of continued disruptions in
global supply chains due to movement, work, and trade restrictions in large
parts of the world.