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    Who would get the vaccine?

    Right from the time COVID-19 grew from being an outbreak in China to the pandemic it is now, governments all over the world have been hoping for the development of a vaccine.

    Who would get the vaccine?
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    Chennai

    That is one way of stopping the long march of this disease, which has no proven medicine as yet. The desperate efforts to develop a vaccine is not merely a matter of healthcare, but one that would help the world return to the past-normal that it had become used to. It is needed to restart not only economic activity - production and consumption, revenue, wages, and so on - but, as things stand, even to take an idyllic stroll as we once used to.

    There are at least 80 groups across the world working on this singular goal. Even as the world is closely following each step of these attempts, hoping for good news to spring like a miracle, there is one important aspect that needs to be highlighted and addressed right now: who all would get this vaccine? Will it be first given only to the people of the countries where it was developed? Or to the biggest market of a pharmaceutical company? Or to the highest bidder? Who decides? The governments, the boards of private firms, or the World Health Organization?

    One episode that shines a light on what could be in store happened about a month ago. A consignment of over a million facemasks was ready to be sent to France from Shanghai airport when buyers from the US came with an offer to triple what the French were giving. After some French officials cried foul and brought this to public attention, many including Canada and Brazil, raised similar concerns of being outmanoeuvred. In another instance, when a shipment of masks was sent through the Czech Republic to Italy, among the worst-affected by the pandemic, the Czech authorities seized it apparently as part of an anti-trafficking operation.

    Closer home, we in Tamil Nadu have the experience of the now-discredited rapid antibody test kits that was delayed by about five days because the stock that was to come to India was diverted to a western country. Realising the risk of being outbid by the rich and powerful countries, the President and Health Minister of Costa Rica had put forth a proposal to create a pool of rights to medicines and vaccines for all countries, under which they all have free access or affordable licence to manufacture them. The need to ensure equitable distribution has found resounding support from the WHO, with its Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressing the need to “address the problem ahead of time”.

    Perhaps, instead of waiting on the margins to cheerlead a potential success, governments, including ours, should pool in resources to fund the research - it costs billions of dollars to develop a vaccine and mass-produce it - to take the return on investment factor out of the way. That equity investment by all is among the best guarantees for equitable distribution.

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