AN INSIGHT INTO VACCINES WITH DR DRAGOSLAV POPOVIC

LAW SOCIETY

AN INSIGHT INTO VACCINES WITH DR DRAGOSLAV POPOVIC

by Bojana Bogojevic

Dr Dragoslav Popovic

Public Health Consultant Serbia

Vaccination, is this the answer to the pandemic?

While the race for vaccinations and the battle against COVID19 is ongoing, humanity finally has a weapon of hope to fight with Sars - Cov 2. I had an extraordinary opportunity to talk with Dr Dragoslav Popović, a worldwide known health expert. I am truly thankful because it isn’t easy to arrange a meeting while his schedule is overbooked with invitations from tv stations, portals, newspapers and magazines.

For EYS international readers I brought our conversation in hope Dr Popović would give to us all precious answers and advice.

Bojana Bogojevic

UN Climate Change Teacher, Lawyer and eYs Magazine Contributor

Dragoslav Popovic has three decades of experience in public health. His work has focused on health systems reforms, including immunizations, private and public partnership, management and communication. Dragoslav has completed his Doctor of Medicine degree (M.D.) at the University of Medicine, Sarajevo; Master of Public Health (MPH), University of Belgrade and a post-graduate degree in Social Policy and Governance from the University of Maastricht. Dragoslav’s job has taken place in Central and Eastern Europe, Central and South-East Asia and Africa. His recent collaborations include UNICEF, UNDP, WHO, WB, GAVI Alliance and IPSOS. He was a member of the working group developing the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration and Global Immunization and Vaccines Action Plan.

Let’s start with vaccines. Vaccines seems more relevant today than ever before?

True. Just three months back, the first global Decade of Vaccines 2010-2020 concluded, and we entered 2021 that will be the global year of vaccination, and hopefully, a year of the resolution of the current COVID-19 pandemic. Many people within the global public health and scientific community were sceptical that scientists will be able to develop an effective and safe vaccine against the SARS-Cov-2 virus, which caused this pandemic, but we are today witnessing that highly efficient and safe vaccines are in use in mass vaccination in many countries and more and more vaccines are in the research or manufacturing pipeline and it will be soon widely available. This is an enormous success of the global community and big hope that the pandemic will be over soon.

But is it the vaccines that caused what some people describe as the global vaccine wars? There is also a new term – the vaccine nationalism that has been used as of recently?

I think the war is by far too strong a term to use, but vaccines are the most valuable weapon that we have against global infection, that resulted in disease and deaths, disruption of life that we know and caused the global economic downturn of the scale that was probably unprecedented in history. Unfortunately. Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 we were fighting the virus with preventive measures such as masks, social distancing, handwashing along with few epidemiological measures such as contact tracing and isolation of potentially infected people. Those simple, nonmedical and non-pharmaceutical measures were effective, they saved many lives, but the progress was relatively slow, with the first temporary decline in global trends in the number of new cases and hospitalisations seen beginning this year. Vaccines are the new, powerful weapon that is becoming available and that will help us to fight pandemic even more efficiently than before.

Bojana Bogojevic recieving the COVID-19 vaccine

So, you think that as vaccines have become available the pandemic will be stopped soon?

No. It is important to understand that it will take time until we vaccinate a sufficient number of people so that we reach the level where so-called herd immunity - or collective immunity – where the majority of individuals in a society will be immune to the virus – start functioning by slowing down and stopping transmission of the virus in the society.

That collective immunity is important as it is protecting from virus even those few, who were not vaccinated, for one or another reason. We should not forget that pandemic is a global phenomenon - there are very few places in the world that are not affected by the virus and we will stop the pandemic only when we immunize a sufficient number of people in all countries – not just reached and developed, but also poor and underdeveloped. And that is a major challenge, as many countries did not even start vaccinating. Another challenge is that vaccine availability is still not optimal so, we need to wait before new vaccines products and new doses becoming available in months to come. The vaccination will not be over soon, but by the end of the Q3 of this year, we will see major improvements in some parts of the world. However, there is no room for complacency, we should not relax until the vaccination is over in all countries. By that time, we will still rely on practising protective and preventive measures.

You're saying that vaccines are not available, but many people are saying that COVID-19 vaccines were produced too fast and we rushing into vaccination with products that are of questionable quality?

The development of the vaccines against COVID-19 is a major triumph of science. It is a historic achievement, and if we were waiting more time for vaccines, I will be very disappointed, as we need vaccines today, right now, to stop this ongoing pandemic, save lives and let people go back to normalcy. Also, in the process of development of these vaccines, we used 21st-century science, technology as well as generous financial support to the research community – and that was a recipe for success. Such resources were never available and because of that, we should never compare the COVID-19 vaccine development process with the development of vaccines at any time in the past. Just to reiterate – when it comes to quality testing of vaccines for efficacy and safety, not a single step in that process was skipped and no quality standard has been compromised at any moment.

But still, we have global war for vaccines?

Yes and no. The reason for a war is that many countries launched mass vaccination programs soon as vaccine becomes licensed for use, which is December 2020, and soon they realized that vaccines are short in supply. This is because politicians overlooked the fact that throughout 2020 the vaccine development was in the hands of science – and from the hands of science it has to go to the hands of the industry so that industry can manufacture a sufficient number of doses to cover the majority of the global population, which is an enormous challenge as we are speaking of an unprecedented number of doses that we need to produce, procure and distribute throughout the globe. We need to give the industry more time, they are warming up, manufacturing is increasing, and the availability of vaccine will improve rapidly over the next few months – some real giants in the pharma industry will come out with their products in months to come. I am an optimist, we live through historic times and we are participating in the largest vaccination effort in history along with 5 billion other people on all continents, over two hundred millions health workers, governments, industry, media, civil society, religious organizations.

Sounds like a big race against time. Who will be a winner and who will be a loser in that race?

We will all be winners, there is no other choice. Certainly, there are some countries that will need support because of their public health and immunization infrastructure but those countries can count on support in vaccine procurement and technical support from the global community through the COVAX facility - that is a partnership led by GAVI Alliance, WHO and UNICEF. We heard so many times over the past weeks – vaccines alone do not stop the virus, vaccination does.

Serbia was highlighted as one of the success stories in COVID-19 vaccination? What was the story?

I think it's a good example that a small country can make a difference if there is proper mobilization within the country. If I am not mistaken, it is still the only country in the world where 4 different vaccines are available and used in the mass vaccination program. This is vaccines from Pfizer BioNTech, from Astra Zeneca, but also Chinese Sinophram and Russian Sputnik V. It is a good example where the government, recognizing shortages that slowed down the launch of vaccination in the EU, explored all possible ways and different markets to get access to enough vaccines, and I have to say, they managed to secure contracts with enough vaccines to be very busy with vaccination over the next few months. In the meantime, Serbia also received vaccines from the COVAX facility and is already discussing with other manufacturers for vaccines that will be soon marketed.

So, mass vaccination is ongoing in Serbia as we speak? What are the results?

The vaccination with two doses reached over 20% of the entire population. It is too early to expect the visible impact on virus transmission, but there is very encouraging data on vaccines efficiency and safety. The makeshift vaccination posts were set up in sports halls or other public places in urban areas throughout the country to facilitate easy access and safe passage of people through the vaccination area. There is a good web-based system for recording vaccination, and every vaccinated person get a vaccine certificate on paper and in form of a Qr Code. This could be important for future travellers as borders crossing becoming increasingly complex and regulated – you never know who and when may request your vaccine certificate.

So, is the COVID-19 vaccination mandatory in your country?

No, it is not. Actually, you express interest and sign in for vaccination through the e-government platform and you get invited to a specific vaccination post at a given time. There is a catch – we have ques of people at each post, but they are all early responders and those who are committed to vaccination. Soon the vaccination will become more challenging as we need to reach those who are harder to reach – such as people in remote rural areas, or those who are hesitant or even anti-vaccination.

Are they many people in Serbia against vaccination?

Yes, there are but not much more than in countries in the European region. We are all under pandemic conditions, but we also facing consequences of infodemia – the flood of fake news and misinformation around disease and vaccines. The same issues and conspiracy theories that you have in Australia are hot topics of public debate in Serbia too. We need to share best practices on how to counteract such misinformation and myths that cause vaccine hesitancy, delay vaccination and prolong pandemics. That is another front we need to have global mobilization and action.

We would agree that in a fight against misinformation the partnering with media will be very important. What would be your last messages to our readers?

I think while we are waiting for COVID-19 vaccines, we should not forget that childhood vaccines and other adult vaccines are available, and we should not miss any opportunity to get ourselves or our children vaccinated on time. We should not risk another outbreak of vaccine-preventable disease such as Measles outbreak in parallel to the pandemic. That would be too much.

33 | eYs Magazine, Autumn 2021