Then came the vaccines
When a year ago the mass murderer appeared in our lives, as it has already claimed over 1.7 million deaths and over 100 million people infected worldwide, we began to dream of the vaccine that would intercept it and allow us to return to our previous lives, without the need to leave so many loved ones behind.
Pharmaceutical companies began to receive large injections of money to invest in research, millions of doses were purchased long before clinical studies and trials began. Today, in record time for the history of vaccines, there are already several tested and approved by different drug agencies. COVID-19 vaccines are already available in the United Kingdom, China, Russia and the United States, and it is only a matter of days before vaccination begins in Europe, South Africa, Brazil and India. In the rest of the world, early February is expected to be a good time to start the process.
If all goes well (let's be optimistic), vaccination could be completed in developed countries by the end of 2021. In impoverished countries things change, they know in advance that there will be no chance for full vaccination and they will have to set priorities. The COVAX proposal, which implies that 20% of the vaccines needed by these countries will come from international aid, is not enough. Pharmaceutical companies should free up patents to reduce costs and make it possible for countries with fewer resources to meet the cost of vaccinating their entire population.
Assuming that vaccination is completed before the end of 2021, we will not be able to say that we have returned to pre-pandemic normality, as we must maintain safety measures, hand washing, social distances, masks, etc. throughout this time. And we must bear in mind that the initial tests of the vaccines tested do not have sufficient time to know whether we should be re-vaccinated annually (as in the case of the flu). It seems, according to the experts, that this will be the most likely scenario. As long as researchers do not find a definitive vaccination option, the COVID-19 vaccine could become a new, permanent, annual vaccine in the coming years.
Pharmaceutical companies have generated multi-million dollar profits on the stock exchange from the successful announcements of their vaccines alone, in addition to the sale of their patents to manufacturers and distributors. But this golden goose cannot last a lifetime. Governments must prevent people from continuing to die at the expense of these economic benefits and therefore proceed with the control of patents by a global health emergency.
We must remember that to achieve global immunity we will have to vaccinate 7.6 billion people, which means more than 15 billion doses. If this has to be done annually, the business is booming. It will be useless to vaccinate ourselves in the West if Africa, Latin America and Asia do not vaccinate their populations massively.
Leaving a mass murderer swarming around large scenarios cannot be an option. Mutations of the virus can cause serious damage to public health and we have to tackle it at its roots. It is time for politics and we will have to trust that those in power will assume the historic responsibility they have been given.
Francisco Pineda Zamorano, expert in International Relations and Cooperation