FEATURE Differential Response to Epidemics by the Elites !
Just a word about the welcome, energetic response of the elites in India to the Covid-epidemic but the neglect of the much deadly, prolonged epidemic of tuberculosis. By the first week of January 2021, in India, about 1.5 lakh people have died of Covid-19 in last 10 months. This is of course most deplorable and the hue and cry about this epidemic is quite justified. What is problematic is the silence about more than 4 lakh TB deaths every year, especially when this number has not declined during last 60 years! This is despite the availability of very good diagnostic technology and very effective medicines. This silence is because TB is primary a disease of the poor!
THE POLITICS OF COVID-19 VACCINATION
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he attempt to develop a safe and effective vaccine against Covid-19 disease and permission given to it in India have been riddled with contradictions. The main contradiction is between the fantastic techno-scientific development regarding Covid-19 vaccine versus the limitations imposed by vaccine nationalism and the politics of profit-hungriness of giant pharma companies.
- Dr. Anant Phadke
phase-III testing, eight have received limited or emergency use approval, and two have been approved for full use. However, patenting even for these Covid-vaccines is a sore point because the pharma companies have benefited hugely by so many non-profit inputs. There are welcome exceptions to patenting of Covid-vaccines - The Oxford University is not charging any patent fee to Astra-Zeneca, the British pharma company which is manufacturing its vaccine and who also has declared that it will not make any profit on this vaccine till the pandemic id over.
WELCOME NON-PROFIT INITIATIVES Usually, it takes from 5 to 15 years to develop a new vaccine because it is an extraordinarily challenging work for the scientists and technologists. However, the SARS-Cov-2 virus is similar to the SARS-CoV-1 and MERS viruses on which considerable work had already been done. This helped tremendously to expedite the development of SARS-Cov-2-vaccine. For example, the Moderna mRNA vaccine was developed in record time. It entered phase I human trial just 63 days after the availability of the genome sequence!; the latter was available in record time by January 11, 2020!! Thanks to the initiative by WHO and some international agencies, there was consensus among scientists to have parallel phases of clinical testing and reviewing of data to expedite the research process of phase-I, phase-II trials instead of the usual method of sequential process. Large investments by governments (for example, financial help from the US govt. for the Moderna mRNA vaccine) and innovative financial models helped pharmaceutical companies to work on developing the vaccine without having to face the financial risk entirely. Currently more than sixty SARS-Cov-2 vaccines are in human clinical trials, of which twenty have reached
The ‘Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator’ (ACT Accelerator) is the global collaboration to accelerate the development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. ‘COVAX vaccines pillar’, another international coalition, is speeding up the search for an effective vaccine for all countries. It is planning to distribute free of charge, 2 billion doses by the end of 2021 to developing countries including India. However, the interests of the profit-centric pharma corporations and the nationalistic postures (bordering chauvinism) by different right-wing governments have vitiated such global humanist responses to this unprecedented health crisis. Here I would limit myself to the experience in India to illustrate this broader point of the harm done by profit-centric pharma companies and by nationalistic postures. PECULIAR TRAJECTORY OF THE EPIDEMIC IN INDIA There is a great deal of difference in the trajectory of the Covid-19 epidemic in developing countries like India and that in the West. The number of Covid-19 cases per million population in
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