It has been accepted, at least by right-thinking people, that a high level of vaccine-induced immunity is what will steer the world away from the current COVID-19 catastrophe that has changed life as we used to know it. And although the hope for a return to the status quo anytime soon is slim to none, inoculation against the virus is the path toward a reduction in sickness and death.
That being the case, and nothing being equal in the world, even as they were being developed, vaccines were quickly pre-ordered and bought up by the richest and most powerful countries leading to the coining of the phrase, vaccine nationalism. As of February 10, it was estimated that close to 130 million vaccines had been administered globally. Of that number, some 100 million vaccines had been dispensed to people in just 10 countries.
This state of affairs has drawn the outrage of many. It has been condemned by World Health Organisation Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on more than one occasion. As recently as last Wednesday, he issued a joint statement with UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore, in which they called vaccine nationalism “a self-defeating strategy (which) will cost lives and livelihoods, give the virus further opportunity to mutate and evade vaccines and will undermine a global economic recovery”.
Meanwhile the global initiative aimed at equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines (COVAX) is still to get its show on the road. It was announced on Monday last that COVAX, which aims to secure at least 2 billion doses by the end of this year mostly for low-income economies, expects to start shipping vaccines out later this month. Hope springs eternal. Or maybe not.
The WHO believes that all countries should have access to enough vaccines so that they can prioritise immunizing healthcare workers and older people. Once this is completed, the organisation said, countries can move on to other citizens. This has not been happening. Those receiving early vaccines in many countries are the wealthy, and the connected, most of whom are young, healthy or not high risk. Concern over this has also drawn condemnation from other international organisations and individual countries and in some places, there have been repercussions.
In Peru, for example, Health Minister Pilar Mazzetti was forced to resign on Saturday last over former president Martin Vizcarra receiving an early vaccination. Then on Sunday, Foreign Minister Elizabeth Astete was also forced to resign after she received a vaccine ahead of the national immunisation schedule. Peru’s health workers were due to start receiving their vaccines on Tuesday.
Closer to home, the Caribbean Community (Caricom) in a statement issued on January 13, expressed “deep concern” at the inequitable access to the vaccines, going so far as to call for a global summit in the context of the WHO’s ACT-A Facilitation Council to discuss the issue. Guyana’s Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony had also weighed in on the subject of fair distribution since late last year, citing the US as among countries in bilateral arrangements with drug companies that had pre-ordered and over-ordered vaccines.
But then, last week, Barbados generously donated 3,000 doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine to Guyana. Dr Anthony had long said, since October in fact, that healthcare workers and other high-risk groups would be the first to be vaccinated. However, according to what the minister said when he accepted the vaccines, it would appear that Barbados donated them with the stipulation that 100 doses were to be given to the staff of the Caricom Secretariat.
This is puzzling. Are we really serious about beating back COVID-19? If so, why should the staff at the Caricom Secretariat be given priority when, according to Dr Anthony, Guyana has 22,000 frontline workers who are possibly exposed to COVID-19 on a daily basis? Clarification, and a reason for this, are required here. Surely the staff at the Caricom Secretariat can work from their homes, wear masks, sanitise and wait like everyone else.
If this was indeed a condition under which the donation was given and accepted, then neither the Guyana government nor Caricom has the moral right to call out any country that chooses to distribute the vaccines it purchases as it sees fit.
One has to wonder too, how the 104,000 doses expected by way of COVAX and the 20,000 said to be promised by China will be allocated. The people of Guyana, particularly those risking their lives every day in hospitals and clinics, deserve an explanation.