The world wants to avoid a “vaccine war” … and Trump chooses to play solo

Shi Jinping, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel and the World Health Organization are unanimous in the belief that any vaccine against the Coronavirus should be a “global public good”, but in Washington, Donald Trump has one priority: to vaccinate his citizens above all.

And behind the principle of “global public benefit”, there are in fact two separate problems, the first of which is the intellectual property problem, and the second is the problem of the distribution of the first doses. The solution to the first problem may be easier than the second.

Africa, for its part, is demanding a vaccine that is not subject to intellectual property restrictions, as announced by South African President Cyril Ramafossa. But achieving this seems unlikely, as laboratories will be willing to recover the billions they have invested, and can count in this context on US support, which is hostile to any international intellectual property rights review, as I confirmed this week in response to the World Health Organization.

Without a doubt, the upcoming vaccine will not be free. As for the price, the groups that worked on developing it will seek to recover the production cost price at a minimum.

Undertaking the cost price also is not a matter of substance. A similar commitment to HIV treatments was made, as Matthew Cavanah of Georgetown University reveals, but unofficial manufacturers then found great room for maneuver, cutting prices tenfold or more.

For his part, Mark Feinberg, the former scientific director of Merck Vaccins and the current president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, notes that laboratories have learned the lesson and will not want to turn to a “pariah” party in the equation, which could harm its reputation and ability to make profits.

Weinberg believes that sharing intellectual property will inevitably take place, because “nobody can alone respond to global demand, and it will force any party to search for partners to make the product.”

Hence, the hardest question, ultimately, is: Which of the 7.6 billion Earth inhabitants will be vaccinated first?

America first

The World Health Organization, Europe and non-governmental organizations working in the fight against the Corona virus are seeking to implement an unprecedented “fair” distribution mechanism, starting with the principle of vaccinating health workers in all countries affected by the virus, then workers in basic jobs such as the police and transportation, and then the rest of the population comes .

But Trump, who is waiting impatiently for life to return to normal, does not pay attention to this global solidarity. His government’s goal is to produce 300 million doses by January, enough to vaccinate all Americans, young and old, noting that this is still only hypotheses that clinical tests have just begun.

“His mentality (Trump) is very isolated, very hateful for foreigners, which is the opposite of what we need to control the pandemic,” said Stephen Vermond, dean of the School of Public Health at Yale University.

He added, “The United States is not an isolated island and relies heavily on others abroad for consumption and food,” adding, “We will not return to normal if the Corona virus is still ravaging the rest of the world.”

It remains that the Trump government invested hundreds of millions of dollars early in experiments with vaccines being developed by the Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Sanofi groups, hoping that one of them will bear fruit and thus make the vaccine in the United States.

The directors of “Moderna”, a biotechnology company and “Sanofi”, said that Europe could be inspired by the American move.

However, unlike in 2009, when the H1N1 virus spread, “launching is here on a white page, we have neither vaccine nor plant,” says Pascal Barollier of the Gavi Foundation, which buys vaccines to developing countries.

The “Epidemic Preparedness Alliance”, established in 2017 to cope with the initial failure to contain the Ebola virus, invested half a billion dollars in nine companies developing vaccines against Covid-19. In exchange, it is required to share technologies developed for a rapid and massive production process.

With this support, laboratories are creating additional production chains without waiting for the results of clinical tests.

Companies build alliances with one another. Our managers can produce in the United States (for the American market) and Switzerland (for the European market). Sanofi is cooperating with the competing “GSKA”. The two giants own factories in Europe and America.

But to fully vaccinate the planet, it is hoped that several tests will be produced to produce a vaccine, not one.

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