The war on COVID-19 is haunted by lessons from the fight against another virus a decade ago. In the spring of 2009, the H1N1 swine flu virus emerged in the United States and Mexico and spread worldwide. Within weeks, the World Health Organization(WHO) declared it the first pandemic since 1968.
Wealthier governments that had provisional contracts with vaccine makers immediately exercised them, “effectively monopolizing the global vaccine supply,” according to Richard Hatchett, who managed U.S. pandemic flu policy under George W. Bush and returned to advise Obama during the 2009 swine flu pandemic. Hatchett now heads the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). The U.S. alone ordered 250 million doses, and Australia, Brazil, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and Britain all had vaccine.
Under pressure from the WHO, those countries ultimately committed to share 10% of their stockpiles with poorer nations. But due to production and distribution snarls, only about 77 million doses were shipped – far less than needed – and only after the disease had peaked in many regions. If an effective vaccine emerges for the new coronavirus, a replay is possible, experts say. None of the global health authorities believes there will be sufficient supplies to satisfy the immediate demand. Governments will be under tremendous pressure to immunize their own citizenry and get life back to normal, so hoarding remains a serious risk.
Ronald St. John, a physician who has held government posts on infectious disease control in the United States and Canada, expects a similar scenario with vaccines. “There is going to be a lot of self-interest in terms of the production,” he said.
In the United States, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a federal agency that funds disease-fighting technology, explicitly gives preference to vaccine projects promising U.S. production capacity.
“We’re asking the American taxpayer to give a lot” to the vaccine effort, so it’s important to ensure U.S. access to any successful vaccine, said Bright, BARDA’s recent chief.
Many other governments are pouring money into vaccine initiatives with expectations that they will be first in line if a viable vaccine emerges.
Arcturus Therapeutics, a San Diego biotech, is receiving up to $10 million (8 million pounds) from the Singapore government to develop its mRNA-based coronavirus vaccine candidate in partnership with the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School. If the vaccine is approved, Singapore gets first access, said Arcturus CEO Joseph Payne. Everything after that, he said, goes to “whoever pays for it.”
“Arcturus is not responsible for the ethics of distribution – governments are – but in order for governments to get the vaccine, they need to pay for it,” Payne said. “The country that will win is the country that stockpiles multiple vaccines at risk.”
In China, a major global producer of vaccines, the government is backing several coronavirus vaccine projects, raising the prospect it will inoculate its 1.4 billion people first.
The World Health Organization announced a “landmark collaboration” across the international community to raise $8 billion to accelerate the coronavirus vaccine development and ensure equitable access worldwide to any successful vaccine. Countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas announced their participation, but the United States and China, two of the world’s biggest pharma forces, did not.
“There will be no U.S. official participation,” a spokesman for the U.S. mission in Geneva told Reuters
Yuan Qiong, senior legal and policy advisor at Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Access Campaign explained “There shouldn’t be any patent monopoly and profiteering out of this pandemic.”
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