Race for the vaccine

EDITORIAL: First things first. The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the poor risk being "trampled" as wealthy nations roll out Covid-19 vaccine. The government of Pakistan's announcement of beginning the process of vaccinating people against the coronavirus from April 2021, though appreciated, seems a little optimistic because it's still not known for sure if a vaccine will be available in enough numbers to cater to the third world by then. Even Pfizer, which has had everybody excited since its announcement of a breakthrough vaccine just a few weeks ago, cut its rollout target because of "supply-chain obstacles" in a move that disappointed governments and rattled financial markets on Thursday. Now instead of the 100 million vaccines that were due by year-end, it is going to struggle to produce 50 million. However even if it is able to scale up raw material supply and meet its production target of more than 1.5 billion doses next year, countries like Pakistan would still be out of that particular race. Double-jab vaccines, which require a repeat dose after a week or so, are not designed for places like Pakistan with very high poverty and population growth rates. People are difficult to trace or have to travel large distances for their medicines.

And even if the logistics could somehow be taken care of, the Pfizer vaccine needs to be shipped and stored at temperatures of around minus-70 Celsius, which simply puts it out of reach of many struggling countries, particularly in Asia and Africa. This has already triggered calls for provision of suitable storage infrastructure to be "factored into the support" that will be needed if the not-so-rich countries are to be taken along on this road to recovery. Even the best case scenario, not to speak of best intentions, cannot get that vaccine here by April. Pakistan would instead have to wait for the AstraZeneca and Oxford University venture to deliver the kind of results needed to get it approved. But they still have problems to overcome so there's no timeline on it yet. Our clinical trials of the Chinese vaccine developed by CanSino Biologics seem to be going fine. Perhaps that could provide some sort of support till a definitive cure, one that is available for everybody in the whole world, is available.

Even countries like the United Kingdom (UK) that can afford to stand ahead in the line and have decided to proceed with the vaccinations as early as next week, based on Pfizer's above-90 percent success rate, are taking a risk because the vaccine's approval was fast-tracked, taking only 11 months. And even if it has no short-term side effects, there's no way yet of knowing what could happen in the longer term. That is why the European Union (EU) is pretty unhappy with London for going ahead like this. The Boris Johnson government's fear of the economy tanking alongside crucial Brexit talks with Brussels seems to have pushed it into taking this risk. Now, as it hopes its calculations are correct, everybody will be looking at it as a litmus test of sorts, especially Pfizer itself; to feed the bulge in its stock price if nothing else. All this time the virus will keep spreading and killing, of course, so the focus will remain on enforcing the right kind of preventive measures. Pfizer's supply chain disappointment was aired alongside news of the total number of Covid-19 deaths surpassing the 1.5 million mark. Should the second wave now turn into a third wave, as many are fearing, and more economies and international trade are shut down, the timeline for both making and shipping the vaccine will naturally shift further into the future.

All Pakistan can do for now, all things considered, is prepare itself for the logistical and financial challenges that will accompany the massive vaccination drive, whenever it comes. The government has promised to "provide the coronavirus vaccine free of charge," according to Parliamentary Secretary for National Health Services Dr Nausheen Hamid, which is admirable though it might want to set aside a little more than the Rs150 million for vaccine procurement that it has so far. Yet before such a time can come our biggest challenge is stopping the virus from spreading any further. The whole country is to blame for a very well-contained situation to have turned around so badly. There are still reports of people openly violating social safety rules and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), which means that worse times might still follow. Therefore, before we can get in the race for the vaccine, we must get ahead in containing the virus.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020